Guide Dog--Evaluation Weekend --Pinehurst, North Carolina

Go to Mira USA webpage!
I got evaluated this weekend for a guide dog. It was quite rough and tough on the first day.
When we first got there, Erik Saint Pierre talked to me. He evaluated me on traffic and on the cardinal directions a little. I hadn't expected to be starting on my evaluation once I came to the restaurant where everybody was. Anyway, after that, I sat down for a  little while. I also walked around to talk to people. I talked to Bob Baillie, the founder of Mira USA. Mira USA is the organization I'm going through, to get a guide dog. Mr. Bob told me that I will have one-hundred percent care of my guide dog if I get one. I talked and walked for a while. A few people talked to everyone. We were allowed to ask questions. I got some information since people were asking questions.

Next, Saint Pierre took some of us outside  and started to evaluate us. They took one at a time later, and saw how well we dealt with the traffic. We had a route. The route was to go east,  cross the street, turn north and once you reach the corner, then turn east, and finally cross the street four times. I thought I knew what he told me, and so I went. I tried, and a few times, I had to raise my hand for help. I did it okay-ish. Once I reached the corners, I tried crossing, but a bunch of times, cars came and went in front of me. I'm supposed to cross with the parallel traffic. People would also stop when they thought I wanted to go. That proved to be kinda hard for me to determine when to go. I had apparently misunderstood, because I thought I'd need to walk a block and cross the street and turn left. I thought needed to do this and not just cross the street four times. There is a difference between crossing the street four times and walking a few blocks and crossing those streets. Oh, well.

I made it. I ended up crying because it was tough! I went back. They were helping me be careful and watching how I did things. I went to the street with the restaurant. I got inside the car with the three trainers. They were all men. They took me to another spot. I was told to go straight as close to the cars as I thought. I did that. Then, they asked me what I could see. I told them I could see the sun and shadows. I couldn't determine which shadow belonged to whom. He also tested me on if I could see what he was doing. He was doing something. I couldn't decide where and what he was doing. I finally figured it out that he was doing something in my face like  waving his hand. My guess is that he wanted to test my sight. I'm not sure, though.

We got back in the car and drove back to the road where the restaurant was. He took my cane and told me to cross the street without it. I was very nervous and scared. They were watching. They want all of us to be safe, just like they told us. That was my least favorite thing to do. I tried and it was hard. I finally finished. I went into the restaurant with tears. I cried some more. People came and talked to me and tried to soothe me. I did get over it after a while. We sat around and talked to each other. We ate our lunches. I finished, and I visited with another kid. She is thirteen. She cried as well. Several of us kids cried that day, because it was hard and we were being pushed outside the comfort zone. We all made it and stopped.

Lastly, we were tested on figuring how far the car was from us. Saint Pierre helped us to stop walking ten feet from the car. I was pretty close, the first time. He brought me to two or three feet. My arm and a little more is about two and a half feet or three feet. I was asked to do it again and I did it with my arm out from my body again and touched the car to see about the length. The third time, I tried sticking my arm out and coming close to the car to be three feet without touching it. I did fine on that, I'd guess. Others went and did the same deal. That was it for the evaluation for Saturday.

An hour later, we all were at the founder's house. It was huge. The dogs that will become guide dogs this summer were let out and were walking around. I stood around a long time, with two girls. We talked and then two others joined us at different times. We ate. I got to be with the first two girls and talked some more. We even got to pet the dogs. They were so cute! They had soft fur and so much fur. We went back to the hotel and went to bed.

 I will tell you more, in another post.