"It's just yours"

When you lose your vision, when the familiar world is more and more hidden behind the veil, when you are alone, it is very difficult to feel free. But sometimes this freedom can be accepted as a gift. From the dog

Help dog helpers of disabled help help

Actually, Angelina has always loved cats more. Cats do not need to walk. They know how to purr and come to sit on the owners on their knees. When the mother of Angelina died 13 years ago, Ruslan's home gray cat helped her 15-year-old sister cope with the loss.

“When a person feels that someone needs him, it gives it a special feeling-warmth. When you are loved when they care about you. And Ruslan did something similar to her sister, ”says Angelina. When the mother died, the girl was 26 years old. She had to take care of her sister herself - and it was important, going to work, not to leave the girl alone.

Ruslan loved to “go to the collar” on her sister's neck. She loved to meow at the sideboard so that she was given drying there. Like the hostesses, she liked acute food. Ruslana often played with herself and jumped on the walls, but the cat's pranks were not indignant, but had fun: “When she came into sight, she stopped doing this! You know how people are embarrassed to dance in front of someone. So Rusya was shy to play in front of us. ”

After a year and a half, the girls were asked to move out of the rented apartment - and the cat had to give the cat. Since then, Angelina has no longer started animals, because she was afraid to lose his pet again, and frequent trips did not allow the cat to take.

In 2018, three years after loss of vision, the Arsi dog appeared in the life of Angelina. How Ruslan once helped her sister, he was able to help Angelina at the most difficult time in her life.

Eyes are constrained

Angelina's vision problems began in childhood. At school, she was sitting on the first desk, but did not see what the teacher was writing on the board. Glasses did not help, and had to wait until the teacher writes all examples and gives her a book with tasks. She always had the least time to solve.

Angelina Photo: Lisa Zhakova for TD

“You yourself understand what my estimates were,” she says.

Angelina could not see at dusk and constantly asked her friends to bring her home in the dark. Not always correctly calculated the distance to the plate with cookies on the table and, it happened, all scattered, trying to reach her. For some reason, every time it stepped exactly into the center of the puddle if I tried to step over.

Due to poor vision, she could not work in her specialty-a social teacher. She lived on disability and constantly worked somewhere: a nanny, a nurse, a cleaner, a distributor in network companies.

Vision deteriorated sharply after Angelina performed surgery. She believes that it was precisely because of the procedure that she was completely blinded. Doctors “on the mainland” - as they call the rest of Russia on Sakhalin - they say that its guesses are true, at home - that it is just a coincidence or that it should have happened.

Immediately after the operation, Angelina realized that she could no longer read - earlier she loved it very much. Even a magnifying glass did not always help. And once in the winter, when she came to her friends in another city to visit, a white veil fell in her eye. Eyes seemed to be dingleless, like glass. Soon it passed. Well, probably so a new climate and cold affected her? But this was repeated again and again, already at home.

Angelina to the last refused to believe that she was completely blind. This happened about a year after the operation, but she cannot name the exact moment when this happened. “Just in some period, I began to wake up with the thought:“ I will see today or not? ”” One morning she realized that the condition that was yesterday was left with her. "It just continued, and that’s it."

Arsi photo: Lisa Zhakova for TD

The woman did not tell her friends that she no longer sees: “To talk about something, you need to think about it. And I could not think, my brain could not stand it. ”

Angelina almost did not leave the house - and if she had to, asked her to bring her to the entrance as close as possible. In the courtyard, she could even focus even blindly, but one day, due to the noise, she did not notice the drivers and almost fell under it. Then she realized that one could not move along the street more.

"NOT DOAR"

The fact that the blind person could take a guide dog, Angelina knew for a long time, but weighed for two years whether it was worth doing. They tormented the questions: is it so necessary, will it cope with the animal? It meant to get a guide to admit friends, and just to all the surrounding people on the street that she did not see.

Nevertheless, she decided that she could no longer constantly ask her to accompany her everywhere, wait for her friends to come even in order to, for example, clean the potatoes: the peel quickly begins to smell unpleasantly in the garbage bucket, and without the help of strangers, Angelina could not reach the garbage tank.

To understand which dog is better suited to a person, in the educational and cinological center of the Dog-Assistants of the Disabled, where Angelina turned, first they ask to fill out a special questionnaire. It is necessary to write whether a person moves by transport, lives in an apartment or in a house, on what roads he will walk, what kind of dog is preferable to him.

“Since I was not a dog girl and I didn’t have any experience with dogs when I filled out a questionnaire, it was very difficult for me to answer questions. For example, what character should the dog have? Calm or active? I had no idea what a calm dog is, what is active. I decided that I would simply adapt to the character of the dog, ”recalls Angelina.

Angelina and dog arsi photo: Lisa Jacova for TD

She submitted an application in 2017 and was waiting for her labrador for a year-the dogs of this breed are taken in a guide due to innate friendliness. The volunteers are grown enough and active puppies selected at the age of three to four months. Then for about six months they are trained in the center, and then distributed the blind in line. Angelina went to Labrador Arsi - large, because Angelina has a rather big growth, calm. The senior methodologist for the rehabilitation of the center Natalya Gromova says that women are more suitable for women - “gentle” - dogs.

The woman went to take her guide from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Moscow. “I can’t say that we rushed into each other,” Angelina laughs. - I very calmly reacted to it. Of course, I touched him. Well, a dog and a dog. I wore my tail, looked at me, sniffed. ”

For two weeks, a freshly baked mistress, along with the coach, learned to manage Arsi, struggling with drowsiness due to a change in time zones, and was very afraid of the upcoming exam. To pick up a guide home, the woman had to successfully go with him along one of the learned routes. As a result, graduates coped with almost five - they get very rarely at the exam.

The most difficult thing began upon arrival in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Long road to the store

About a month, Angelina wondered: “My God! Do I really have a dog?! " Friends asked if she was glad, but she did not understand. I only knew that they have a lot of work with Arsi: “When the dog is released from school, it is very well brought up, it is very trained. It really can be perfect. But when she understands that she had a owner, the dog begins to check and push his master. What is possible and what is impossible. ”

Before getting to the center, Angelina often found idealized information about guide on the Internet. Everywhere they wrote that the dog can bring the owner anywhere. But nowhere, before with the dog you need to memorize the route to the destination.

The most difficult thing was to teach Arsi to find the desired store. The fact is that near Angelina the trade pavilion with several stores stretched. And a person will not immediately find a sign to determine which door he needs. And how will the dog understand where to go?

At first, Angelina taught Arsi to reach the landmark - a lamppost standing opposite the pavilion. Then the woman continued to move, and her friend gave a conditional signal when she was equal to the desired store. Then Angelina told Arsi to turn, and near the entrance - to look for the door. At each control point praised for a successfully traveled segment.

Angelina and dog arsi photo: Lisa Jacova for TD

“While I was walking and waiting for a team from sighted, I counted steps. Honestly, it was difficult to count the steps, because everything had to be controlled. Others, in order not to encounter them, a dog passing through themselves. It was a complex process physically, emotionally and psychologically. ”

Today, Arsi understands what route he will have to do, Angelina is just to make movement in the right direction. He leads it, stopping before any obstacles. If Angelina drops a cane, wallet or gloves, he will certainly raise. Angelina's friend Olga laughs, which usually does not keep up with them.

“I say to her:“ You are going like an icebreaker. Such a crowded street, you are flying - and everyone only has time to crumble in different directions. ” And she replies: “Yes? And I think: that we have such a deserted street? I used to hurt so many people,” Olga says.

Angelina says that the blind and the guide dogs were in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and before her, but she became the first patient of the clinic, who agreed to let the animal inside with. The administration of the clinic had to change the rules for visiting for visually disabilities and coordinate the decision with the Ministry of Social Protection of the region.

In her yard, Angelina fundamentally always removes the dog, although the sighted hosts often do not do this. She adopted to fix the place where Arsi crouched, putting her leg nearby. Olga, so that a friend does not come somewhere, now removes the lawn from garbage left by neighboring dogs. So, due to the appearance of a dog named Arsy, the court of Angelina became noticeably cleaner.

"You just love"

Olga says that with the advent of ARSI, Angelina became noticeably more sociable and simply happier.

Angelina and dog Arsi on a walk photo: Lisa Zhakova for TD

“We should not be dependent on someone-this is very difficult. Although you constantly assure Angelina that this is not so that the help of friends is sincere. But you can not always be close due to circumstances. Even relatives, loving friends are not always there. And the dog is always there. And she lives for you, and you, like them, can be said to her, ”Olga argues.

The loss of independence due to blindness was the most severe blow for Angelina, but with the advent of Arsi, she ceased to consider herself a burden for her friends. And Arsi himself became a friend for her.

“When Arsi appeared, I realized that the question is not in the breed, the question is not in the amount of the animal. I care about this animal, but it takes care of me. When there is a relationship, it does not matter who it is. It's just yours. You just love. "

Last year, the coaches and volunteers of the training and cinological center “Dog-Assistants of the Disabled” raised and handed over to the blind more than twenty faithful guide. Preparation of one dog is a thorough and expensive process. It is necessary to buy good food with thoroughbred dogs, provide their medical support, pay coaches, pay for the rental of the premises of the center with a training hall and aviary. Please subscribe to the monthly donation in favor of the center so that even more blind people can feel free.