Thought Wheel

Ann Chiappetta

Guide Dog Journal Day One 🦮

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs

May 16, 2025. Day One of training

It’s ten a.m. and we’re ready for the first day and the challenges and string of successes along the path to becoming a good team. Andrea spends the first part of the morning describing the equipment, harness styles and body styles I can choose from during our time together. It’s a bit like buying a car. Leather or Fabric body for the dog? Synthetic leash or leather leash? I liked the harp-style harness handle, the quick snap fastenings and the Unifly style harness.  The equipment is in tones of blues with gray and the leather is smooth and sturdy.  I will train with the leather harness first. Dog Three is black and looks great with a bright blue collar and coordinating leash.

 

We begin with obedience   indoors. He is responsive if a bit resistant, to be expected. I’ve got to prove I’m worth it. I’ve got to mimic the other handlers and raisers in voice, body language or be close enough to it for this dog to respond correctly. It gets better as we go.

 

After obedience, I harness up Dog Three and Andrea snaps on the training lead to Dog Three and we are off.  There is so much to feel and think through, so many little pulls, tweaks, and movements to understand. It’s a bit like exiting a topsy-turvy ride and walking off it, equilibrium trying to assert itself after the wild ride.

His turns are great. His pace and pull are good for me. he takes commands well. His gentle lips and whiskers remind me ofVerona. I think we will give one another the grace to bump around, find our center.  This moment, the moment he accepts  the treat from my hand is when I’ve become determined to make this work.

Later the same day, the mall is great for indoor work and we get to know one another better.  He indicates the change in floor textile where the store ends and the mall area begins. He stops  at the elevator. He stops or indicates  the ATM, the tables at the  coffee place, etc. He targets very well. To the chair, the door handle, the ramp leading into and from the mall.

 

Day Two

Dog Three and I learn how to walk together. I pull to the right and he is still learning how to compensate for it. This results in me veering when I don’t want us to and the trainer helps me. She observes what is happening and we begin working on solutions. One solution is using the Unifly harness because it has a single centered handle designed to eliminate exactly what I am doing.  It helps with his pull and pacing as well.

 

Dog Three and the two cats and dog in our home are getting along as if they have known one another already.

 

As for me, I am exhausted, my hips hurt and  I love it.  I’ve missed this so much. My body hurts in places  like  in my quads and  shoulders. This will pass.

 

Two routes per day is the goal. We are doing the sidewalk less route in the morning and the indoor route/walks with sidewalks in the afternoons.  There are recorded lectures and follow-ups with the school’s own lead Veterinarian and the advocacy lecture. Both are coming up soon.

 

Guide Dog Journal 🦮

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs

 

May 7, 2025

I flew to Cape Cod  last week. It was the first time I jumped aboard a plane since before the Pandemic. It was great flying again. The travel bug has returned.

 

While I spent five days with my sister and her wife in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, Pat, the woman who raised my second guide dog, Bailey, visited. She brought her current guide dog in-training, nexie. She is a black lab, less than sixty pounds. She lay between Pat and I during lunch, placing her head on my foot.  When she did, I told myself my new dog would be with me soon and his big head would be propped on my foot soon.

 

It was wonderfully healing to be with Pat, talking about my second guide dog Bailey and his life with us. Until then I didn’t want to acknowledge the huge gap Bailey had filled and left due to his death early last year. Now, at least, I can begin learning how to allow myself how to love another guide dog.

 

The day after Pat left, she texted me a quick note. It said she found my new dog’s puppy raising region on social media. She said he has a big head and a soft face, which in dog terms means an intelligent expression. Jerry said he looks smart, the same way my first guide dog, Verona, had looked.

 

Now I am even more excited, and I want to shout it out to the world. I am going to meet him in eight days, and I cannot wait to feel his big head and introduce myself.

May 13, 2025, I spoke with dog three’s trainer yesterday. Her name is Andrea, and she is one of the Guide Dog Mobility Instructors, or GDMIs in the Specialized Training department for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Now that I am older and often rely on a support cane, the admissions person thought my needs would be better addressed with a GDMI who will incorporate my other mobility challenges in addition to my blindness and receive a dog who is acclimated to a support cane when working with me. How cool is that? Andrea also works with the deafblind students and students with other disabilities. .

I got to pick out the color of dog Three’s collar, type of leash (biothane or leather) and booties. We talked about the types of harnesses and the harness handle. I prefer an ergo-style to ease the strain on my wrist.

 

We ordered dog food and today and tomorrow I am washing the dog beds and gathering up all the doggie paraphernalia I’ve collected over the years. I’ll donate some of it to a local shelter and   maybe Andrea will accept the dog booties for the equipment room back at the school. Hey, it’s all about reusing and upcycling now, right?

 

Jerry is so excited, and I know he will have to restrain himself. He will also need to pay attention and mind the rules for a while, something he doesn’t like.

 

May 15

Dog Day. It’s early evening in  Monroeville. The humid air keeps it from getting too cool. I am so nervous. I admit it to Jerry, who  seems amused by it.

 

The van pulls in and I feel the change coming.  I pray this match is everything for which I am hoping. It’s a quiet and simple greeting. He is curious but not overly excited.  I get a few sniffs, call his name and dispense a few treats. We go inside, he and my other dog are friendly and ten minutes later they are chasing one another in the back yard.  He doesn’t relieve himself until later after all the greetings are done and we are preparing for bed. He settles in on the tie-down on his new bed and soon we are all asleep.

 

 

Word of the Year 🦮

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs

Yellow lab Bailey lick's Annie's face. She is laughing.Annie and yellow lab Bailey licking her face

The word for 2025: Doggedness

 

Definition — persistence in effort; tenacity or perseverance.

 

I have been reading essays and blog posts about choosing an action word for 2025. Being someone who doesn’t respond well to new year resolutions I decided to try a word of intent.

 

Looking back on 2024, I accomplished many good things with my husband by my side. We also felt the strain of transition. Leaving our home of over thirty years and relocating to a different State and the death of my retired guide dog, Bailey left us reeling. Jerry and I occupied ourselves with managing the house and we both acclimated fairly well in this respect. But as we settled into our new home and routines, the pain of losing Bailey became almost unbearable for me. Not only did I miss him in a physical sense, but I missed the loss of independence he provided being my guide dog. His illness and death cut me off from pushing ahead and taking full advantage of our new life here and what the community offered.

 

Bailey died on March 16, 2024. My heart has recovered enough to welcome my successor guide, though, only a few months ago I wasn’t ready and questioned if I was sufficiently healed to open my heart so soon.

 

Parting with our lives back in New York and embracing Pennsylvania and the quieter lifestyle and less frantic pace we both longed for many years was the expected, watching Bailey suffer and pass from complications brought on by lung cancer was the unexpected.

 

The depression and grief resulting from losing Bailey dragged me down, at times the light at the end of the tunnel dimmed to a pinprick.

Losing Bailey was like losing my eyesight – again –And had doubts about the mental effort it would take to step out of the darkness into the here and now, to feel the warmth of the sun on my soul.

 

Some days I wanted to sleep the entire day away but I didn’t. The motivation to get up and fight off the sadness kept me from giving up. I got back out using my white cane and regained some lost confidence. I am still avoiding going places on my own, though. The irrational fear of being dropped off in front of a strange building with no cell reception floods me with anxiety. I don’t have my dog to keep me safe if I get lost. I don’t know where I am. The entire geography is unfamiliar, unlike New York. In New York, if I didn’t know where I was, I still knew where I was.

 

Yes, it is March, my birthday month. I’ve reached the tunnel’s end, evident by this post tapping my chest and telling my heart to get ready for dog three. Telling myself I will hold onto a harness and fly again.

 

Here is where doggedness accents my life during 2025. I will be dogged about pushing past my fears, work towards training with another guide dog, and allow myself to remember Bailey, his big yellow labbbiness, big personality and tongue, and honor him by taking a chance on another canine partner.

 

 

 

 

warm thoughts on a cold day

| Filed under blindness blogging writing Writing Life

Got cabin fever? How about some reading to help pass the time.

Hop on over to

https://pattysworlds.com/sublime-sunday-reading-presents-featured-author-of-the-week-ann-chiappetta/

 

and read an interview I submitted for Patty’s Worlds blog. If you haven’t checked Patty’s books, why not find out about them while you’re visiting.

 

August Newsletter V 2.8

| Filed under blindness nonfiction Poem

Annie Shares News volume 3 Issue 8 August 2024

anniesharesnews@groups.io

Subscribe anniesharesnews+subscribe@groups.io

Visit my Website

Follow me on my Goodreads author page or my Amazon Author page.

 

🌻  🌄  🌅  🌆

I love this time of year, late summer is peaceful and productive for me. Pittsburgh, what I now call PGH, is filled with street fairs, farmer’s markets, and indoor and outdoor performances. What a great city. It is packed with historic locations, museums and sports arenas. I also heard a rumor PGH International airport will be adding a direct flight to Ireland. I hope it happens soon, I will be on a flight to the Emerald Isle as soon as possible. ✈️☘️

 

As you know, I am a poet and I am also a lifelong learner. Improving my poetry skills is and always will be a priority for me. I am currently in a small, focused poetry critique group facilitated by award winning poet, John Sibley Williams. If you are thinking about joining a small group of poets  and truly wish to step up your crafting skills, a group facilitated by john is the way to go. He offers affordable workshops on writing, publishing and crafting poetry, fiction and nonfiction.

 

I am always looking for opportunities to share  poetry with others. I would love to connect with schools, libraries and organizations who would like to consider me as a guest speaker either in person or virtually on Zoom. I  specialize in speaking to children, adolescents and adults on blindness and advocating for people with disabilities. I have over fifteen years of lived experience using a guide dog and  my knowledge base includes other types of service dogs and the organizations training them. My contact information is anniecms64@gmail.com or 914.393.6605.

Future plans change but I will share I am working on a new novel which will not be out until late 2025 or 2026.

 

 

Until next time, Yins –

 

Enjoy this poem.

 

TROPHIES

By Ann Chiappetta

 

Burnished figures on pedestals

Inscribed electroplate

Into households they gather, insidious

Conniving onto shelf and mantle place

 

They represent childhood paragons

Foster a competitive edge;

Rally spirits when called upon

As we leap and clear the proverbial hedge

 

They possess our emotions, sentiments

woven into beliefs

A bit of blanket, a toddler’s treasure

Photos that trigger grief

 

Even in death we cannot escape

Carved markers above bones underneath

Grassy knolls peppered with maudlin

Guardians, trophies the dead bequeath

 

Yet the living tend the reminders

While the dead are set free

What a breath holds dear

Spirits don’t need.

 

2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A burst of Creativity 🌅

| Filed under blindness Fiction nonfiction

Media Release

 

Contact Ann Chiappetta 914.393.6605 anniecms64@gmail.com

 

Anthology Includes Local Author

 

July 17. 2024 Monroeville, PA —   The creative works of local poet and author, Ann Chiappetta,

will be in the newest literary anthology published by Behind Our Eyes, Inc.

 

Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst is the third literary anthology

by writers with disabilities, who don’t let their disability define

their life. The topics range from memoirs, fiction, and poetry sharing slices of life, speaking to universal themes and common experiences, involving loss and grief, adversity and fear, love and

passion. You’ll be thinking of these stories long after you’ve put the

book down.

 

Copies of “Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst” edited by Mary-Jo

Lord are available through Barnes&Noble and Amazon.Com. Contact the author, Ann Chiappetta  anniecms64@gmail.com or visit her website: https://www.annchiappetta.com

Visit  Behind Our Eyes to find out more about the organization and how to support their  enriching literary programs for writers with disabilities.

Text of cover image courtesy of Be My AI: The image is the cover of a book titled “Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst.” The subtitle reads, “The Third Literary Anthology of Stories, Poems and Essays by Writers with Disabilities.” The book is edited by Mary-Jo Lord. The background of the cover is gray, and the text is in yellow. Below the text, there is an image of a bright, fiery sunburst, showing intense solar activity with vivid orange and yellow colors.

Text of cover image courtesy of Be My AI: The image is the cover of a book titled “Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst.” The subtitle reads, “The Third Literary Anthology of Stories, Poems and Essays by Writers with Disabilities.” The book is edited by Mary-Jo Lord. The background of the cover is gray, and the text is in yellow. Below the text, there is an image of a bright, fiery sunburst, showing intense solar activity with vivid orange and yellow colors.

 

Missing Mouse 🖱️

| Filed under assistive technology blindness

Living the life and being a blind assistive technology user means  interacting with my pc from a `keyboard. I ditched the mouse when I began navigating a computer with JAWS software. We refer to the various text-to-speech software programs for blind and low vision as screen readers, not to be confused with a live person reading aloud.  These programs accomplish much more  like assisting me in writing, formatting and interacting with the internet when posting blog content, holding interviews and attending virtual meetings, or checking my Facebook account.

 

The mouse, and to an extent, a touch screen for a laptop or desktop computer isn’t useful because I can’t see . For example, the mouse for my system is tucked on the little shelf beside my laptop.  Unless Jerry needs to assist me with something on my pc, it stays there gathering proverbial dust. One day I was cleaning the real dust and cat hair from the desk and the mouse tipped over and slid down the back of the desk, wedging itself under the floor mat behind the desk. I didn’t notice. The following week I noticed odd things happening on my pc like the windows jumping around and arbitrarily closing.  Then our pet dog, May  started sleeping under the desk where it’s cooler and I finally realized her napping was somehow responsible for my pc acting weird.   I confirmed the mouse wasn’t in the usual place next to my laptop. I slipped off my shoe and located the  mouse, easing it out with a toe.

 

Now I have the mouse back and in a safe place. May can go back to laying on the remote on the bed and changing the channels instead of  laying on the missing mouse and messing up my documents.

 

 

 

Remembering Bailey a poem for NPM

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs Poem

Your Name

Ann Chiappetta

 

Bathing my life in slobbery joy you

Accepted me unconditionally

If only love could  sustain you and

Let you live forever

Everyone knows a dog named Bailey

Yellow Labrador guiding  my heart

and memories.

 

For Guiding Eyes Bailey 1BB13 April 2013-March 2024.

 

Yellow lab Bailey lick's Annie's face. She is laughing.Annie and yellow lab Bailey licking her face

dreaming of a Dog

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs Poem

Double Dreams of My dog

Ann Chiappetta

 

I

Dreamt of

My dog’s escape

The door was open

Heartsick I panicked

Searched, begged

fruitlessly

for his

return. I watched

all those I   lost

drive off with Mom

Bailey Bailey Bailey

I called

Silence

But then

Someone called,  urgently

I have

him

My hand

Touches the leather

this collar  familiar but

Not my dog

Could this

Dream

Dog Be

my future partner

or is it merely

a wishful

thought?

Yellow lab Bailey one year old standing at the shor in Maine. Photo taken by his puppy raiser. Bailey died March 16, 2024, he was ten. We miss you buddy.

Yellow lab bailey posed with blue skies and clouds in the background.