The Future of Our Partnership

Today I have made one of the hardest decisions anyone partnered with a service dog makes, that of hanging up the guide harness. This decision was not made lightly or in haste. Thane has been out of harness for a short time due to a skin issue which has since healed nicely. While out of harness, we worked together as a service/ hearing dog team (combo trained dog) When the harness came back into the equation however, stress was quite evident for Thane. I won't go into all of the details here other than to say that it was very important to me to listen to what Thane needs and wants rather than focusing on how difficult life without a guide dog will be.

At this point, Thane still loves to do his indoor tasks. These tasks are also a huge part of my ability to live as independently as I do. He will continue in the home to be my service dog and probably even learn new tasks. Public access as a service/ hearing dog may come to a close as well or we may find that stepping out of harness resolves the stress issue.

For now though, I will go solo and give Thane more time to heal, relax, and be loved for the awesome dog he is and has been at my side. He will remain in my life, as the teacher of the great lesson and heartbreak known as Lyme Disease. I sincerely doubt I would be making this post now, if it had not been for it. The reason really doesn't matter though- all that matters is that he is loved and will continue to be loved and cared for by me.

The Future of My Blog

This is a quick post to my followers to give you a heads up on what may be the end of future posts from me. Blogger is updating their interface. For some this may sound like a great deal, but to those who are visually impaired or blind, its not the case.

You see, bloggers new interface is not very accessible to those who rely upon screen readers. For now the old interface is still active. Blogger is fully aware of the lack of accessibility, but it looks like they are still trying to get everyone to switch over to the new interface this month.

For those non-computer savvy folks who read my or other VI or blind folks blogs, the interface is required to add entries to our blogs.

Though I could just move to another blog hosting site, I have not decided what course of action I plan on taking at this juncture.

I loved that at the time I started my blogs, I was able to do it without captcha via my gmail account- that is not an option on a lot of other blog hosting sites so I have a lot to figure out.

For now, I'm staying put unless of course I log on one day and find that blogger decided for me