Excerpts

Have Dog, Will Travel Prologue People ask: "What's it like?" "What's it like walking with a guide dog?" "How does a dog keep you from harm?" Or they say, "I don't think I could do that, I mean, what's it really like to trust a dog that way?" Truthfully it's not like anything else. There's no true equivalent for the experience. My wife is an equestrian. Years ago she was a guide-dog trainer. "On a horse," she says, "you're hypervigilant, aiming to avoid accidents by controlling your animal. Sometimes you and your horse will find a meditative rhythm. But you can't count on horses to look out for you." A guide dog is not like a horse. She looks out for you. All the time. What's it like? I can only help you imagine what a guide dog feels like. Say you're in Italy in a swirl of motorbikes. It's Milan with thin sidewalks, confusing street crossings, and barbaric drivers. Montenapoleone Street is crowded with what seems like all the people in the world. Let's say you're walking at night to the Duomo with Guiding Eyes "Corky" #3cc92. Corky does her thing and relishes her job. She pulls you along but the pull is steady and you feel like you're floating. Her mind and body transmit through a harness an omnidirectional confidence. Why are you going to Milan's famous cathedral with a dog? One of your favorite books is Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, which contains passages so beautiful you sometimes recite them aloud. Of the Duomo Twain says it has "a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath! . . . The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures--and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest . . ." Now it's just you and your dog. You're going there to touch the birds and fruits and beasts and insects carved from marble. Not only are the streets teeming with people, there are skateboarders. Now your Labrador eases left. You hear a clatter of wheels. You think how Milan must be dangerous for skateboarding with its jagged paving bricks, broken sidewalks, and Vespas like runaway donkeys. Motorbikes plunge through crowds. Someone does a dance with death every twenty feet. The city is a fantastic, ghastly place. In the midst of this your dog is unflappable. Trained to estimate your combined width, she looks for advantages in the throng and pulls ahead because the way is clear or she slows suddenly because an elderly woman has drifted sideways into your path. Sometimes she stops on a dime, refusing to move. Which she does now. There's a hole in the pavement. It's unmarked--there are no pylons or signs. A stranger says it's remarkable there aren't a dozen people at the bottom of the thing. Corky has saved you from breaking your neck. She backs away, turns, then pushes ahead. It doesn't feel like driving a car. It's not like running. Sometimes I think it's a bit like swimming. A really long swim when you're buoyant and fast. There's no one else in the pool. Yes, this is sort of what it's like, but there's something else--a keen affection between you and your dog, a mutual discernment. Together you've got the other's back. Excerpted from Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet's Journey with an Exceptional Labrador by Stephen Kuusisto All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.