I took her along with me everywhere, so that she had as many experiences as possible and got used to all the normal situations of a city living. In her first weeks with me, she was afraid of a number of things, like crossing doorways, going up or down staircases or crossing in front of gates behind which adult dogs barked. In those circumstances I never forced her to go ahead, but I never allowed her to retreat either, so we spent quarters of hour right before a garden gate or in front of a shop’s door and I think I made her have a meal on every step of our building’s stairs.

I used the time at home to teach her basic obedience and especially to play a lot with her. We like to fight, I bought a sleeve so that she can bite with satisfaction and I love the fact that we share such a physically intimate game. I made her go through a series of puzzle games of increasing difficulty in which she had for example to lift lids, pull ropes or open boxes to get her treats. I taught her to retrieve the ball, which is a great game for a blind person to play with their dog, because while the dog is pursuing the ball, we know what he or she is doing and is easily under control even if unleashed. Later this game upgraded to the useful thing that is she can retrieve for me objects that I have dropped. Later on, it upgraded again to her finding various things for me, like the public garbage bin, the traffic light or a door.

Very soon I made her catch the bus and the train, and few months later the plane too. Every walk we took was a chance for her to start getting familiar with the requests a guide dog needs to understand. Even though I knew she was too young to undergo a formal training, I thought it would not damage to start pointing her the way. So, every time we got to a corner I used to say “turn left” or “turn right” just before actually turning. Getting to the edge of the sidewalk I stopped, hit my feet on the ground to call her attention and said “curb”, after waiting for the right moment to cross the road I said “let’s cross, search the curb” and when getting to the other sidewalk I hit again my feet on the ground, said “curb” and showed great joy about it all. In the meanwhile I was walking her already with a leash length that caused her to start staying and getting used to the position of the guide dog, with its hind legs beside my own leg, and was showing her that she should keep the direction and the speed, by changing direction myself or stopping anytime she pulled. In fact, when she was eleven months old and I bought the guiding harness, she guided me the first day I put it on her. Because she only needed to keep doing the same things, I had always asked her to do. The harness changed my life, not hers, because to me it is the chance to feel very accurately, by means of the rigid handle, all the movements of my dog’s body, telling me she is stopping, turning left or right, going up or down and even how high the step is.