Life with Harley: The dog that changed Zach’s life

by MELODIE DAVIS

Harley is a sleek two-and-a-half-year-old friendly black lab. Zach Shifflett is a Blue Ridge College student who grew up in the Broadway area. They are inseparable. Neither Harley nor Zach would have it any other way.

But this is more than just a dog story or a “guy and his dog” story. Every day, Zach places his life into the eyes, feet, intelligence and training of his guide dog, Harley. Zach is a 22-year-old man whose own gorgeous hazel eyes don’t happen to work.

To Zach, that’s all blindness is—another description like blond or blue-eyed or tall or short. That’s the way he wishes everyone else looked at him. A person first.

Zach is an avid reader who also enjoys writing, a guitarist who enjoys singing and is working on his first CD, and rock climbing. He lives with friends in an apartment in Harrisonburg, and Harley has made it possible for Zach to have the independence any young adult desires, and ability to lead his own life in a way he didn’t fully realize was possible last year at this time.

Sometime around the first of last year, Zach began thinking about getting a guide dog because he knew he didn’t want to have to deal forever with the hassle of using a cane to get around. He was tired of running into walls and street lights.

It is a dark and rainy night when we met at Franklin’s Café for an interview, one of Zach’s favorite downtown hangouts, a place where he can be occasionally found playing a gig with his guitar. Zach suggested this venue because he could walk from his apartment.

Zach met Harley through the Leader Dog for the Blind training program linked to Lions Clubs International, with training headquarters in Rochester Hills, Michigan. A person accepted for the program pays no fees; the Leader Dog program is a non-profit organization which operates totally on donations and partnerships. (Different training programs have different names for their trained dogs such as Leader Dogs, Seeing Eye Dogs, which are not generic terms.) Zach spent 28 days in training in Michigan this summer, and has been enjoying his new independence ever since.

Both dog and owner go through a rigorous selection and training process. A puppy with potential is raised by volunteer puppy trainers who spend a year loving and guiding the puppy through basic obedience techniques and skills. The dog then lives with a guide dog trainer for 4-5 months who focuses on mobility—helping a person navigate city streets and learning more complicated commands. Some dogs don’t work out, and “change careers:” adopted by people just wanting a good pet.

After Zach submitted his application with the sponsorship of the Broadway Lions Club, he was interviewed three times in hours-long phone interviews. It is an expensive and lengthy process to train a dog to the extent that a person feels totally comfortable entrusting his or her life to the dog, so screeners are very careful in selecting participants.

The training program tries to assess whether an applicant has the motivation to see a program through, and what kind of personality to match up with a potential dog. The program studies videotape which the applicant submits of themselves walking. Trainers judge how confidently or hesitantly an applicant walks, and at what speed or stride.

The training program is rigorous and exhausting, both for students and dogs (see sample journal entry in box by a 1991 participant, available on the Internet). The last day of training, participants and their dogs were taken to an unknown spot in downtown Rochester and told to find their way back to the training facility. They were given talking GPS devices and it was a new experience for Zach to not only find his own way back, but to actually assist others in finding their way—those who were not as tech savvy with the GPS direction-finding devices. “To actually help someone else find their way—that was a new experience for me,” Zach recalled.

But Zach has also had to deal with the curiosity of strangers regarding Harley. People address Harley before they address him. They remember Harley’s name but don’t remember Zach’s. It is tiring and annoying when people keep reaching out to pet Harley—especially when a large sign in the harness on Harley’s back clearly says, “Do Not Pet Me. I Am Working.”

Everyone thinks the sign shouldn’t apply to them. A girl came up and after oohing over the dog and purred to Zach, “Can I pet your dog?” Zach was feeling particularly sarcastic and couldn’t help responding, “Why don’t you people ever want to pet me?” The girl was offended but Zach thought it was a little taste of how he feels every day—offended when people assume he wants to take time to stop and talk. “It gets tiresome for people to ask the same questions, over and over. I just want to blend in, go out and do my own thing. I want to go to the grocery store and not have a lot of people ask the same questions, over and over, like ‘What does your dog do?’ I’m really not that outgoing.”

He is not aware of any other blind people in Harrisonburg with guide dogs, so Zach understands that people have good intentions, are curious, and just want to be friendly, but he would like for other people to put themselves in his shoes. “I like the line ‘better ignored than adored,’” Zach cites, when it comes to his dog. Petting breaks the dog’s concentration when he is in his harness, and the dog owner must work diligently at keeping the dog’s hard won training in tact. If the owner doesn’t work hard at maintaining training, the dog becomes useless—and ultimately dangerous as a guide dog. If people interfere and try to help—in crossing a street for instance—it confuses the dog. Zach is happy that at college, people are getting used to Zach and Harley and take them in stride. Of course he enjoys talking to people he knows, who address him first.

On the other hand, some businesses haven’t caught up with the times and squirm at the sight of Zach and his dog. The American Disability Act (ADA) prohibits any business from not allowing a trained working dog in uniform to enter. Once he went with two friends and Harley to a busy restaurant and the manager told them, “We’re kind of crowded in here; do you want one of my outside tables?” Zach said, “I just wanted to get a burger, not be confronted with an embarrassing situation.” At another restaurant, Zach had to show his official guide dog certification.

At home, Zach takes off Harley’s harness and then they are just guy and dog. But still Harley follows him everywhere, sitting outside the shower, lying at the foot of his bed. “I still don’t let him beg from the table: he’s really a good dog even at home,” Zach praises. The dog is trained to only do his business when the harness is removed, so before Zach goes somewhere with Harley, he takes him outside without the harness and gives the command “Park.” The dog knows he is then free to do what comes naturally. “I’m not going to say he doesn’t occasionally go on a light pole with his harness on, but that’s okay,” Zach smiles.

At a Lions Club supper where Zach tells of his experiences, Harley can hardly resist sniffing at the buffet as Zach passes through the line. Harley cleans up crumbs from the floor that fall his way. At our interview, he wedges under the table and takes one lick at my shoe, (tempted I’m sure by the scent of my own dog). None of these “pushing the edges” movements of the dog are missed by Zach, and he nudges the dog back into compliance.

Zach describes getting Harley as life-changing, but for reasons that are hard for him to describe. “I definitely am way more able to do the things I want to do now. I can walk a lot faster without the cane jamming into the sidewalk. It helps me deal with going out into public better. I’m independent-minded and have a huge drive to be independent. I really appreciate the Lions Club giving me this opportunity,” states Zach. His grandfather, Ken Brown, is a member of the Broadway Lions and Zach says “He’s always been my role model.” Zach has no siblings and his parents both live in the area.

After Blue Ridge, Zach hopes to move to a larger city where there are more transportation options. The Leader Dog program emphasizes mobility, freedom, access and independence—opportunities that are now in Zach’s hands. “The guide dog has been a life-changing, amazing thing. It’s given me a lot of confidence in traveling around and doing the things I want to do.”

MELODIE DAVIS is national editor of Living and lives near Harrisonburg, Virginia.

©2009, Valley Living