The Tajji Diaries: A Story of Her Own

This blog was first posed in 2015. Tajji has since gone over the Rainbow Bridge, but her spirit remains with us. I read an excerpt from this story, "Four Paws To Light My Way" at FogCon last year.

Tajji, our elderly German Shepherd Dog, came to live with us a little over a year ago when she retired from seeing eye guide dog work. She learned new behaviors in the process of “being just a dog.” Her behavior also showed us some of the many things dogs who help the blind must learn. Some of these are responses to commands. Tajji knows “Go Right,” “Go Left,” “Easy (slow down),” and “Back,” for instance. She was also able to enter a mall (a chaotic place for a dog) with her blind person and, never having been in this place before, guide him to an elevator, escalator, or rest room.

We also noticed other behaviors from her training. She would remain lying down in the same place after we had stepped over her, touching her. Not moving would allow a blind person to remember where she is (and not trip over her, at least, not twice.) She uses a gentle nose touch as a greeting (as do most dogs; it’s polite) but also to let us know when she has come to sit beside us. She asks for attention by touching an arm, sometimes neatly inserting her nose underneath a hand. In fact, she initiates physical contact so much we suspect she was not only trained to do so, but bred for the predisposition.

All of this got my writer’s imagination started thinking about different ways dogs can be partners with humans. Years ago, I loved watching movies about Zato-ichi, a blind swordsman in Japan. He had preternatural hearing, and his ears would twitch when he heard an enemy approach, undoubtedly a theatrical device to point out to the audience what was happening internally. Since I was preparing to write a story for Sword and Sorceress 30, the idea came to me of a blind swordswoman – and putting Tajji in the story. How would they interact? What could the dog tell my character and how? 

The Tajji Diaries: The Wolf in Winter

Tajji December 2016

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about Tajji, the retired seeing eye dog we adopted in 2014. She is a sweet, loving dog, but had become leash-reactive (not aggressive) to other dogs and sometimes people, making her unsuitable for service work. We worked with her, enrolling in “reactive rover” classes that used positive techniques to lower her anxiety and teach us to help her out in challenging situations. Although she was already an old dog, she learned new tricks: eye contact with humans, “let’s go!” detachment from stressful situations, “puppy Zen” and more. She’s made significant progress, and even though from time to time we are surprised by oncoming dogs on our walks, she trusts us to get her to a safe place. Consequently, she’s better able to tolerate the presence of other dogs while on leash. We’ve been able to walk her by yards with barking, lunging dogs, using our management techniques. Although we continue practicing, we don’t hold out hope that one day we will be able to walk her anywhere, with pass-bys with other dogs and other difficult situations. This is fine with us. Our deal with Tajji is a safe and happy retirement, and so far that’s the case. She clearly enjoys her walks (and all the neighborhood dog and wild animal smells); when we get out her harness, she romps around the living room, tail wagging madly, before dashing for the back door. Her joy is contagious, especially on frosty mornings when we aren’t all that enthusiastic about going for a walk. She gets us out the door.

In addition to walking on paved roads, we have found a place to take Tajji hiking. A nearby retreat center has given us permission to walk with her on their trails as long as we pick up after her and she is on leash. For this, we use a retractable lead to give her a greater range to roam. Some of the paths are fairly smooth and level, but others are definitely hiking territory, narrow twisty trails that involve changes in elevation and scrambling over fallen trees. She loves these hikes, and clearly they exercise her brain as well as her body.

Tajji and Shakir hanging out

Tajji came to us with only rudimentary cat skills. We’re pretty sure she was exposed to them by her initial foster family, but her blind owner didn’t have cats. She has a very low prey drive for a German Shepherd Dog, undoubtedly due to Fidelco’s breeding, selection, and training standards. We took our time introducing her to our two dog-savvy cats, and she has become fast friends with the male. They play chase, he rubs up against her, and they often “hang out” or cuddle together.

In the 2 ½ years we’ve had Tajji, she has become noticeably more gray in the muzzle. Although she has no major health issues, she limps occasionally and moves stiffly on cold mornings. She will trot willingly, but no longer wants to run. The vet prescribed supplements and NSAID arthritis medicine as needed, and the combination seems to make her more comfortable. But given her age and how hard she has worked (physically as well as psychologically), we feel she is entitled to take it easy. We try to take her for a walk or hike every day to keep her joints and muscles in shape.

The other major physical change we have noticed is a deterioration in Tajji’s hearing. As far as we can tell, her vision is still quite good, but she no longer responds instantly to someone knocking at the door or being called from across the house. Commands spoken in a soft voice must often be repeated more loudly. Fortunately, we began teaching her hand signals as soon as she came to live with us, and we have been relying on those more and on verbal commands less. She seems quite content with the shift.

I’ve heard folks say they want to get a puppy so the dog will bond with them and won’t come with any bad habits. Tajji came to us with her own history, training, and personality. She presented us with challenges; some we have resolved better than others. She isn’t perfect, and neither are we. But with a little patience, a bit of perspective on what’s really important, and a huge serving of love, we get to share in the joy of her twilight years. 

Four Paws To Light My Way (excerpt)

Tajji

Tajji, our retired seeing eye dog, has made such a difference in our (sighted) lives that I wanted to feature a dog like her in a story. Being a fantasy writer, and one who loves strong women characters, I came up with a blind swordswoman and her guide dog. The whole story appears in Sword and Sorceress 30 (in print and ebook editions at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, other venues). Here's the opening:

Four Paws To Light My Way (excerpt)

The curse lay heavy on the Shining City. Jian could smell it in the dust and the sourness of the leaves of the ginkgo trees that lined the approach to the royal palace. They fluttered unseasonably to the ground and crunched under her feet. Here and there, the paving stones, once so level and smoothly joined that she had felt as if she were walking on glass, had buckled. From time to time, Dog nudged her knee in one direction or tugged on the heavy leash in the other, guiding her along the crowded streets.

Dog didn’t like this place. Jian could tell from the stiffness in his muscles, the staccato tapping of his nails on the stones. He preferred bare earth or the windswept hillsides around their home, where wild cattle grazed. Jian did not allow herself the luxury of an opinion; she came when the Emperor commanded, and she would continue to so until he released her from her oath.

The quality of air and sound changed as they passed the outer gates. Here was naked wall, there the many-times-lacquered wood of the gate, here the density of living flesh. Guards would be posted, watchful and still.

Dog slowed, a slackening of the leash. Jian bowed. The guards did not ask her name. How could there be two of her — a blind woman dressed in patched and faded soldier’s garb, a sword in its battered sheath tucked into her sash, a scarf of imperial silk tied around her neck? At least, they were not so foolhardy as to suggest she leave Dog outside the palace.

“Forward,” she said, and Dog guided her inside.

Footsteps on the raked dirt of the courtyard came nearer, then stopped in front of her. She paused, nostrils flaring even though she lacked Dog’s keen sense of smell. There was something familiar about that stride…but she’d been sighted when she’d last heard it.

The Tajji Diaries – Unexpected Help

It’s been a while since I posted our adventures rehabilitating our retired seeing eye dog, Tajji. We’ve had her about 8 months now and she has made progress on her reactivity to dogs (and sometimes people) that made it impossible for her to continue service work. Most of our focus has been on learning to read her signals of distress and teaching her ways of self-management as we keep her safe.

Our promise to her was that she would never have to work again. Guide dog work is not only stressful psychologically and physically, it amounts to sensory deprivation for the dog. A working guide dog cannot follow normal canine behavior or even respond to the richness of sensory input that a normal dog enjoys. Dogs, even “sight hounds” have keen olfactory senses, but a working dog is taught not to sniff. Imagine Tajji’s delight when we not only permitted but encouraged her to sniff while on walks! A working dog must be constantly alert (hypervigilant) for dangers to her handler, and must make rapid decisions. We let her take her time assessing a new situation, removing her as best we can when she shows signs of discomfort. (In our reactive dog class, we modify this by giving her simple, pleasurable tasks like nose targeting or eye contact to help her reduce her own anxiety level.)

Because we never ask Tajji to do seeing eye harness work (nor could we -- we do not own such a harness, and her front-clip harness of soft webbing is quite unlike the rigid one she used to work in), we do not encounter her trained behaviors very often, other than manners and basic obedience. One notable exception is that she has been taught not to move when she is lying or sitting and a person approaches. This makes sense in terms of letting the blind person know where she is (and will be in the next minute). Our other dogs have scrambled out of the way, especially at night. Tajji doesn’t budge.

GUEST BLOG: Dave Trowbridge on Rehabilitating Our "New" Old Dog

One of the joys of having a dog-savvy partner is being able to compare notes, especially when faced with a challenged dog. Here are some insights from my husband.

When we began looking into ways to rehabilitate Tajji, at least one source noted a tendency for a dog to backslide for “three to seven days” in the relatively complex training required. Two weeks ago we noted something like this in a rebound in Tajji’s reactivity to other dogs, culminating a couple of days ago in her “going off” at an empty yard where she frequently sees a reactive GSD, then nowhere in evidence. About a week ago she added  barking at pedestrians at some distance. Despite the warning, her regression was a bit disheartening after the more rapid progress of the previous five weeks.

Enlightenment followed last Tuesday, in conversation with one of Tajji’s former owners. Deborah and I had misunderstood the order of events, believing that Tajji’s disorderly behavior was the result of not knowing how to behave outside a service harness. Instead, it turns out that the barking and lunging had developed while she was working. Of course, her blind person had little or no warning, and it got so bad that people were crossing the street to avoid her.  Her owners worked with more than one professional trainer, but nothing helped, and so she was retired.

In short, she had a nervous breakdown.

How To Be A Dog: Walkies

Hanging out

When she came to live with us, our retired seeing eye dog, Tajji, had on on/off switch. “On” meant working on a rigid guide harness, focusing on all the things she had been taught to do for her blind handler, to the exclusion of all else. Guide work is enormously demanding for the dog, both physically and mentally. The dog must learn many behaviors (such as looking both ways when passing through a door or stepping off a curb into a street) and must perform them reliably. In addition, she must be strong enough to physically pull her person out of harm’s way. “Off” meant “no holds barred, completely off duty.” According to her former owner, this included pulling hard on the leash, playing “keep away,” jumping up on people, and barking and lunging at other dogs. We very soon witnessed all of these behaviors, all of them unacceptable in a companion animal. Now Tajji must learn a new set of behaviors: “normal manners.”

One of life’s joys is taking your dog for a walk. It’s not only good exercise, it’s a conversation between you. Even if you’re walking and talking with a human friend, you and the dog can be in communication. When we looked at Tajji’s challenges, we saw several distinct behaviors to work on.

• Walking on a loose leash, both beside the human handler and at a distance, depending on the length of the leash. 
• Enjoying the banquet of smells, but coming back to heel readily when called.
• “Checking in” with the handler.
• Walking calmly past other dogs and humans; approaching them only when released to do so. Greeting humans in a calm way.

Dog-reactivity is a big chunk, so we’re working on that separately. First, we needed to get Tajji solid with the first three skills. She already had the foundational skills of Sit, Stay (Wait), and Down, although her Heel and Come are not reliable when she’s in full-blown “off” mode, so they’ll need more work.

To help Tajji learn not to pull, we decided to never attach a leash to her flat leather collar. Previously, that’s the setup in which she pulled strongly, so we don’t want to replicate those conditions. Dogs have a reflex to push against any pressure on neck or chest, so a flat collar (or even a choke chain, which we do not use on our dogs) gives them that signal. Instead, we chose a front-clip harness. This is a soft nylon webbing harness, so it’s not like the rigid leather guide harness, and it has a clip in the center of the chest strap. When the dog pulls, she is turned toward the side of the leash. This often breaks her focus on whatever it is she is moving toward, as well as restraining her in a humane way.

Go Sniff

Coming back to Heel

Tajji quickly adapted to the harness, which stopped almost all of the pulling (except in the presence of other dogs). We then used clicker-training to reward walking close to us or coming back to Heel when called. Because we live in a semi-rural setting and there are so many wonderful things to smell (traces of other dogs, wild animals), we don’t want to keep her in strict Heel position all the time – we want her to have fun on the walks! At first, she was hesitant to leave the side of her handler, undoubtedly a holdover from her previous work training and having lived in an apartment in a small city. So we encouraged her to Go Sniff. This skill has the added advantage that sniffing the ground is a calming behavior for dogs and we’ll be able to use it as a relaxation technique when we work on Tajji’s dog reactivity.

Practicing Look

Check In, loose leash

Checking in is a variation on Look, one of the things we teach all our dogs. It’s a way of asking the dog to pay attention to us. Eye contact isn’t natural for dogs, the way it is for people, so we practiced it with the clicker and treats indoors, where there are fewer distractions. Once she learned the command Look, we were able to practice it outside (click/treat) and then to click/treat when the behavior is offered without the command. All the while telling her what a good job she’s doing, of course.

Now we have the foundations for a pleasant walk with a dog who keeps in touch with us while “enjoying the scenery” within the length of the leash.

Welcoming an Old Dog

Tajji guarding pumpkins

My husband, fellow writer Dave Trowbridge, and I have languished in the condition known as Dog Withdrawal. Our wonderful old German Shepherd Dog, Oka, died last April from leukemia at the august age of 12 ½ (GSDs typically live 9-12 years), and the lively puppy who bounced into our lives later that spring went to find a new home (on a ranch owned by rodeo ropers) when I was out of the state for almost two months, caring for a dying friend. After that, we decided to give ourselves time to properly grieve both losses, an act of faith that the universe would present us with the right dog at the right time.

The way this works is you have to give the universe a helping hand from time to time. So both of us spoke of the “German Shepherd Dog-sized hole” in our lives. As it happened, a musician (French horn) in two of the bands Dave plays in (bass and soprano clarinet) is married to a blind man whose seeing eye dog was nearing retirement age. Seeing eye work is strenuous for dogs, both physically and mentally. It requires constant alertness, lightning reflexes, and the strength and speed to instantly pull an owner out of harm’s way. After some discussion, they brought their dog over for a visit. We got to meet Tajji (which means “my crown” in Arabic, her owner being Egyptian), a lovely, sweet-tempered German Shepherd Dog. She’s 10 years old and in good shape for her age with beautiful, strong conformation. Coincidentally, she is a sable (sometimes called “gray” or “Grau”) like Oka. In fact, except for the difference in their sizes, she looks like a feminine version of him.