Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Great things about being blind. The sounds that become familiar.

Tulia is snoring on her doggy bed. She is the first guide dog I've had who snores loudly and often. when I first heard this in training, it was a little hard to get used to. With each dog, I get used to a different set of noises. It takes a while to learn to read these noises and know what is going on. My first guide would howl when she got excited and prance her little front paws and I heard the click click as she did that. She really ran in her dreams moving paws all over the place. Tulia has some very active dreams too with much tail wagging and running of paws. My second guide dog Margaret made whimpering noises when she wanted to go and see another dog. I heard Tulia do something like this the other day when a friend was coming to meet us. A little tiny whimper of excitement but I don't think I've yet heard her bark. Gia made little squeaking noises when she was excited and she wagged her long tail in a certain way always with a thump thump. She also made little snorting noises when happy and always made a certain long sigh when she settled down to sleep.
A very contented sigh which she also made just before she died.
Tulia snores as I've said. She snorts when she gets excited and wags fast and furious. She also makes a kind of rumbly sound when she is settling down or curling up and she makes a long drawn out slide of vocalization from high to low when she is stretching.
I'd miss these sounds if she wasn't here.
Gwenny used to scratch the carpet looking for just the right spot to sleep on. I would discourage this when I could. After she died, I woke up one morning to a similar scratching sound. My heart leaped for a moment thinking she was back. Then, I realized that the sound I heard was someone scraping ice from their car out in the parking lot.
The other day I was playing with Tulia and realized how much I still miss Gia's squeaks when she played and how they growled together when they wrestled or played tug.

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