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46 pages

English

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Meet Paris, the spunky seeing-eye dog. This yellow Labrador had style, intelligence, and such a mischievous nature that she could simply ignore you if you tried to interrupt what she was doing.

With a playful demeanour, soft coat and paintbrush tail, Paris was just Paris; a larger than life character who gave unconditional love to everyone in the family and beyond.

In the nine years that she lived with Stephen Hayes, she laid her paws on the hearts of many. She also laid her head on the laps of many, especially around the dinner table in the hope that they might drop a piece of food into her mouth.

This is her story, and the memories of those whom she left behind.

Sujets

Pets

Dogs

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Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	29 septembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780994459022
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Parisian Tails
by Stephen Hayes

Parisian Tails
Artwork and original images provided by Kim Hayes
Published 2016 by Stephen Hayes, Australia.
Formatted and Distributed by www.ebookit.com
www.stephenhayesonline.com
Copyright © 2016 Stephen Hayes.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon, Apple or similar organisations) in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-9944590-2-2

Dedication
This book is especially dedicated to my beautiful companion Paris, but it is also dedicated to everyone who knew her in life and have their own fond memories of her to cherish.
Foreword
Dogs in this family generally don’t last very long. There have been a few over Stephen’s early childhood but they somehow managed to be given away to better families or they just shot through on us. So it was unexpected that Stephen went ahead and applied for a seeing-eye dog and kept his own counsel without ever revealing that one was in the wings.
Pleased as I was that he would have more mobility in the future, especially with university being a challenge in its own right where a guide-dog would be a godsend. But as with all things comes responsibility and Stephen at first assured us all that a dog would not be an issue for us as he would be the master and carer and we were to keep our distance — lest we corrupt it.
We were told a golden Labrador named Paris (from a P-litter) had been selected and Stephen would have to do intense training and do live-in’s with Paris. That was fine, not a problem from our end.
At my first meeting with Paris —well, that didn’t go over too well. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she saw me and barked ferociously at me while being restrained by her SEDA handler. “That’d be right”, I said, “every female in the family always barks at me sooner or later in this household and this female ain’t any different”.
So Paris came to stay, and such was her nature we all fell head-over-heels for her. It wasn’t enough that she was the ‘hairy-nose’ of the family but she could be very bossy in gaining attention from anyone; especially round the dinner table where she would stare down the sighted patrons and resting her drooling head on their laps while ignoring the blindies in desperate hope of gaining a morsel of food from their plates—and she often did on many occasions.
Paris had style; she had intelligence; she had a blessed way of ignoring you if it interrupted whatever she was doing. Paris was just Paris. Total love to all around her. She was unconditional and doted on the family just as much as we doted on her. She gave safety and companionship to Stephen, made best friends with his siblings Alysha and Molly and left me to pick up the crap. Sounds like a fair exchange of responsibilities.
We knew that age was catching up with her and also knew that she would someday become too ill to go on. What we didn’t expect was it to be so soon. Her lethargy at the park was a tell-tale sign that something was not quite right with her and her ‘menopausal’ behaviour was becoming erratic. And by April 2016, Stephen became a man and made a man’s decision to put Paris to bed for the last time. Such is the loss of Paris that she effected everyone that loved her because Paris is love.
—Dad, 2016
Introduction
Most people have had a pet at some stage in their lives, and in many cases, that pet would have been a dog. In some of those cases, that pet would have felt less like a pet and more like a member of the family, and even a companion. This is the story of Paris, my seeing-eye dog and best friend for nine years, who was taken from us before her time in 2016. She was truly an exceptional girl who laid her paw on the hearts of everyone she met.
We have ways of recording sound and sight into a form that others can observe through audio and video. I wish it were possible to record other things, such as touch, smell, and even thoughts themselves during certain experiences. The brain will do its best to recall the most memorable (not necessarily the best memories), but the recall won't be perfect. Over time, these memories will fade as they are replaced with new experiences.
This book is my attempt to hold onto and share as much of Paris's memory as I can. We have lots of photographs, only some of which are included in this book; as well as plenty of video footage, capturing many of her cutest moments, though missing out on plenty as well. It isn't enough for me; I would like to convey, even if it requires readers to use their imagination, just how Paris felt to the touch, and precisely how it felt to know her for nine good years.

2007: Paris at work ever alert, or is she just looking for some mischief?
The Process
As a teenager, I never thought I would get a seeing-eye dog. I always believed that I could get around quite fine with a white-cane, and that having a dog would be too much upkeep. It wasn't until the age of eighteen, while I was doing orientation and mobility (O&M) training at a TAFE institution where I would be studying the following year (so that I could get around the place independently), that I was enlightened regarding the benefits of having a seeing-eye dog.
Of those, the two main ones were the increased mobility, and the companionship. With a seeing-eye dog, it wouldn't be necessary to run my cane along walls or surfaces with edges to find my way, not if the dog knew where we were going. It wouldn't be a big issue at TAFE, but it may become one the following year, in 2007 when I would start university. As for the companionship, I took it on face-value that there may be some, but I under-estimated just how attached I would become to my first seeing-eye dog.
There was also the extra perk that guys with dogs get a little extra attention from girls, and I won't tell a lie in this story. Over the following months, as I considered whether or not to get a dog, that thought was a factor in my decision-making. I can't recall that ever happening, though, if anyone might have given me more attention because of my seeing-eye dog they inevitably were more interested in the dog than the person beside it.
I sat on it for perhaps seven or eight months before deciding that I would take the plunge and apply for a seeing-eye dog, even going as far as making notes for things to ask when I made the phone call, in case I got tongue-tied. It turned out to be very easy, though; I just had to answer some questions, sign a couple of documents, and I was immediately put on the waiting list.
A few months later, in July 2006 it would have been, I received a visit from one of the dog trainers at Seeing-Eye Dogs Australia (SEDA). For the sake of this book, let's call him Trajan; he was the same person who introduced me to the idea of getting a dog in the first place. (Trajan was the O&M instructor when I was learning my way around the TAFE the previous year.) We went over the ground rules, what I could expect, what I shouldn't expect, and what I would need to be able to do.
We then went for one of the strangest walks I have ever experienced in my life. Trajan walked in front of me and slightly to the side, and he was holding one end of a bar while I held the other end. In this manner, he guided me around the neighbourhood, all the while measuring my typical walking pace and analysing my gate and walking style. He then put me back on the waiting list where I would remain for another seven months.
In February 2007, by which time I had resigned myself to what could be a seemingly interminable wait, I received a call from another SEDA trainer (let's call her Hadrian), saying that they had found a potential dog for me — a ‘lovely yellow Labrador', as she described it on my voicemail (she called me while I was in a university lecture). Two days later, I met Paris for the first time.
Meeting Day
It was a Friday, the 2nd of March in 2007, exactly nine years to the day before Paris's final work walk. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had gotten home from university in the early afternoon in preparation. After some email correspondence with Hadrian, we agreed that I would take a little test-walk with the dog, whose name I hadn't yet been told, before making a decision on whether or not she felt right for me (such as her height, her pace, and even her personality, to a lesser extent).
Hadrian rocked up in a station wagon around three or four in the afternoon, I forget exactly when, and took me out to the car where Paris was sitting in the back. My first thought upon hearing that her name was Paris was one of hilarity, because although I was told that she was named after the city, I couldn't help comparing her, in my mind, to Paris Hilton—and the fact that she was a blonde dog didn't help that. We even joked within the family from then on that Paris's middle name ought to be Hilton.
I was strangely shy when I first met Paris. Even though she was a dog, somehow it felt like I needed to make a good first impression on her. I think I succeeded, because when she was finally standing on my driveway, panting away, I reached out to pat her—and she promptly jumped up and head-butted me in the face. Hadrian told me to tell her to sit, and she immediately obeyed me, still panting and trying to lick my hand as I patted her. She was very excitable on that first day, and she had found a very typically Paris way to break the ice.
I was shown how to put the harness on her, a process I wouldn't master until the training officially began, and then we went for our first walk together. It was immediately clear that her height was perfect for me, so that wasn't going to be an issue. She did walk a little quickly, perhaps because of her excite