IGDD special 2: Damo and Jenna's story, and transition to your successor dog

00:36S1

On Vision Australia Radio. You're listening to the Seeing Eye Dog show with me, your host, Harriet Moffat. Today I'm joined by Damian McMorrow, who is a national access technology manager at Vision Australia, as well as being a Seeing Eye dogs handler. He is joining us in recognition of International Guide Dog Day, which was on April 24th. We felt like we couldn't just do one story for International Guide Dog Day. So this is sort of part two of the special. Part one was our interview with Paul talking about eligibility kind of matching and assessment and the application process to get a seeing eye dog. 

So now Damo is going to be talking to us about his story as a handler, as well as his experience transitioning to his new seeing eye dog and retiring his previous seeing eye dog, Ebony. So we're going to be talking about his new partnership with Jenna, as well as life with two seeing eye dogs in the house. Damo also talks about the client trainee experience and gives some tips that new seeing eye, dog or dog eyed handlers should listen to and enjoy as they might be undergoing their own transition journey. So without further ado, here is my interview with Damo talking about his life story and partnership with Jenna. Hi, Damo. Thank you for joining me on the show today.

01:53S2

No problem. Thank you for having me.

01:55S1

So just to start off, could you please introduce yourself? You know, what do you do? Do you have any hobbies and interests that you'd like to share?

02:01S2

Yeah, sure. So, Damian McMorrow, I'm the national access technology manager at Vision Australia. I've been with Vision Australia in various sort of at related roles for a little over ten years. I'm totally blind. Have been from birth. And, I've just finished training with my fourth seeing eye dog. In terms of hobbies, I'm a very keen cook. I enjoy camping, my wife and I have a caravan. I'm into fishing. I'm into amateur radio. I also do some internet radio broadcasting for a station called mushroom FM. Yeah. Anything. Anything cooking or camping related. I also do tandem cycling, play a little bit of guitar. So all in all, lead a fairly busy life, I guess.

03:00S1

Could you please introduce your Seeing Eye dog and tell us a little bit about them and how long you've been working together now as well? Yes.

03:06S2

So I've had Jenna for about eight weeks now. She's, a Labrador cross golden retriever. he's black and fluffy and small and very cute. And she's a really good little worker. She's been a great match. Um, really enjoyed the whole sort of training process. And, yeah, she's settling into the household extremely well.

03:32S1

How long have you been a senior dog handler?

03:34S2

Got my first senior dog in 2005. So, yes, I've been a handler for quite some time. My first one, unfortunately, had some health problems, so I only had him for about 18 months. His name was Elmo. And then I had a big lab cross Golden retriever called Zaps because he was sponsored by a car dealer in Brisbane called Zaps Holden. So I had him for about eight years. It was kind of appropriate in the end because he was a very big dog. He was sort of 42 kilos, and a yellow lab cross golden retriever. But, the Zaps mascot was a large yellow elephant, which was kind of appropriate given he was such a big yellow dog. And then I kind of went to the other end of the scale with my third dog, Ebony, who was a very small yellow lab. She was only about 24 kilos. And again, I had her for, she worked just a week shy of eight years. And so she retired on the 15th of February.

04:36S1

So could you please tell us a little bit about, I guess, Ebony and her retirement and what she's up to now?

04:42S2

Yeah, sure. So Ebony was, uh, still quite lively. She was. She will be ten in July. But because I do quite a lot of travel for work and some long days and that kind of thing and on and off planes and that sort of thing, I sense that she was starting to feel a little bit more fatigue. So, you know, when I was traveling by sort of the third day, I could tell that she just wasn't, you know, perhaps wasn't feeling as good about it as she used to when she was younger. So, I didn't want to push her to the point of being uncomfortable. And so June last year, I went back on the waitlist, had another assessment and so on. So Ebony is, she's still very healthy. She's living with, some friends of ours. 

I, we thought seriously about keeping it, but realistically, I wouldn't have been able to give her the sort of retirement that I wanted to in that, you know, I'm out and about. My wife's out and about as well. She has her own seeing eye dog. So we would have had three big dogs in a small house, for one thing, and there would have been a lot of time when Ebony would have just been on her own for, you know, 12 hours of the day while we're out at work or if I'm traveling, you know, I could be away for a few days. So, we really didn't think that that was the best retirement for her. And, you know, she's worked hard for me for eight years, so I wanted to have the best retirement that it was possible for her to have. 

So about a year ago, some good friends sort of put up their hand and said, hey, we're now retirees. Can could we give her a home? And, so that's what we've done. It's worked out really well because they already have a black lab who's a similar age to Ebony. So she's got a playmate. They have a big backyard, they have a swimming pool, and, their dog has worked out how to open the pool gate. So if he feels like a swim, he just pops the gate open and Ebony follows. And away they go on a hot day and have a swim. So, you know, it's a pretty good retirement. They both work different shifts and they have teenage kids, so there's always someone around. You know, she's not on her own for hours at a time and that kind of thing. So really, I think it it was a they'll give her a much better retirement than I could have. 

But it's also ideal in that, you know, I'll still get to see her. I'll still get to, you know, we catch up sort of, you know, a few times a year. So I'll still be able to, to see Ebony. And I've also said to them that if they're, if they're going away somewhere and we can we'll, Ebony can sort of stay with us, you know, for a week or two if need be. So, it's good. It means she gets a better retirement than I could have given her. But it also means that I still get to keep in touch with her and, you know, see how she's going and that kind of thing.

07:33S1

Of course. How lovely. I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? You. You know, you have to do what, what you think is the kind of best thing. And for her, if you're popping in and letting yourself swim, that's a pretty good retirement. 

07:45S2

It is, yeah. You know, a playmate, a big backyard and a pool. What more do you want? Yeah, yeah.

07:49S1

You know, it sounds pretty tempting to me, you know, and I. Yeah, exactly.

07:52S2

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I really couldn't have asked for a better outcome, and I couldn't have. Couldn't think of anyone that I would rather, you know, entrust my, my seeing eye dog with. They're great people. And and Ebony already already loves them to bits anyway. Because, we go camping with, with our friends quite often, and, so she knows them. She knows the kids. They take her for a run on the beach when we go camping and things. So, you know, she already associates them with, with fun times. So really, it was the the best sort of retirement we could have arranged for. It was hard, but it was certainly comforting to know that she was going to such a good home. And, um, you know, I've spoken to, um, her new owners several times, and they love having her. She's happy, you know? So. Yeah. 

Really, it was it was saying goodbye to her and doing sort of those, those last few things, you know, sort of the last walk to work, the last walk down to our regular cafe. You know, those things are hard. And as I said, you'd have to be pretty heartless, I think, to not feel that. But I guess the, the good thing about it was that I was, I was wasn't saying goodbye. I was just saying, see you later, you know, and that that makes a big difference because there isn't that finality there. And it was also good that I was able to sort of transition. So Ebony retired on the 15th. Jenna arrived on the 16th and we started training. So I had her for the weekend before we started training to get her settled in. And we started training on the 19th. 

So in lots of ways, I think that probably made the transition easier as well. It's always harder when you have to retire a dog due to illness, and you've got to function for a few months without one. I think that's always makes it a lot harder. Whereas in this instance, the, you know, it was a smooth transition and um, yeah, I think that probably made the goodbyes a little easier and...

09:51S1

I guess kind of going into something as, from what I've kind of been told sometimes is full on or at least as kind of busy training with your new dog. There's an element of distraction.

10:02S2

You have to sort of say, okay, you know, I have to be mentally and emotionally present for Jenna to make sure that the transition goes well. And I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges. When you transition from one dog to another is you you need to be able to give the new dog a good amount of attention and positive attention. You can't sort of be sitting there thinking, well, my previous dog did this or didn't do that. Yeah, yeah, you have to. You have to treat them on on merit and as, as individuals because they are they they do all have different personalities. They are different beings. And. So you sort of have to, I think, make that conscious effort to not compare and to, to to treat each dog on its, on its merit in order to have the best chance of success, really. And so it's something you have to sort of make a conscious choice in. 

And they are all different. They all have their their strengths and their weaknesses or not. Not necessarily weaknesses, but things they do well and things that they're maybe just okay at. But I think, you know, that was something that I did make a very conscious choice to go, OK, understand that I'm starting from scratch. She doesn't know my travel route. She doesn't know me. I don't know her. I don't know her behaviors. I don't know what she likes and doesn't like at this point in time, but I sort of had to to put any sadness aside and try and process that in the short time that I had, the sort of 24 hours or so, so that I was ready to give Jenna all the support and the best start that I could for for her and for us as a team.

11:35S1

What was class like?

11:37S2

It is mentally quite intense because the things that I sort of was able to automatically do with Ebony were not automatic with Jenna. So in other words, you know, you're doing a regular travel route with a dog you've worked with for years. You can sort of, I suppose it's a bit like when you, you drive to somewhere that you you do all the time. You can you can do it. You can concentrate enough to sort of function to do it safely. But you can also allow your mind to wander and think, okay, what have I got to do when I get to work? What what's happening today? You know, that kind of thing. Whereas when you're training with a new dog, I think you, you're sort of hyper aware of everything that's happening. So what's my body position in relation to the dog? Where am I, you know, is she stopping where she should at the curb? Have we crossed that street straight, you know, so all of those things that you used to sort of do semi-automatically all of a sudden you have to think about. 

So it does require a significant degree of sort of mental effort. I think for the particularly the first few weeks, even even once you've finished training, because you're you're trying to do everything as well as you possibly can, you try to set everything up for success and that sort of thing. But, I mean, that's not to say it's not enjoyable because it was, you know, I was working with an instructor called Brendan Ainsworth, and I've worked with him before. And we we get on really well. We, we, you know, if we did have an issue, we're able to troubleshoot it. Well, Brendan was great at giving me sort of feedback on what Jenna's body language was doing, which enabled me to support her because I understood or had some understanding of how she was feeling. Was she confident? Was she a little bit apprehensive, that kind of thing, you know? 

And look, when you're working fairly closely with someone for a couple of weeks, you've got to have a few laughs as well along the way. And we certainly did that. So overall, the experience while it was mentally taxing was certainly enjoyable. I learnt a lot. Um, I said to Brendan in the very beginning, I said, you know, even though I've done this before, treat it as though I haven't, because there are changes in the you know, the, the training methods and things have updated and changed slightly. So I said, you know, Don't assume I sort of know things. If you feel free to train me as you would a new handler in some ways, because that way I get as much out of it. And I, you know, I can adjust my techniques and things to suit the changes in training method. 

But also, I think, I mean, it's like anything, you know, if you, it's a bit like if you were going for a. You know, if you've been driving for 15 years and you went for a driving test, you'd probably find that there were a whole bunch of bad habits that you'd maybe picked up, well, not bad habits, but just things that are not ideal or are not best practice that you pick up as you go. The same thing happens when you're working with a dog. You know, perhaps you pick up some postural things that are not ideal or those sorts of things. And so, when you start training with a new dog, that's a good opportunity to kind of reassess those things and go, Hang on, have I you know, I've been doing this for the past few years and maybe it's not ideal, you know? So I think I sort of approached it with a very open mind. I and I think that's when you're transitioning. 

I think that's really important to be able to say, don't you know, I'm not going to assume that I already know all this stuff. There's always stuff I can learn. There's always things that have changed. And so I tried very much to to approach it with that mindset and think, okay, well this is different to different dog. The training methods have changed a little, you know, and I need to be receptive to that. And I need to work with Jenna in the way that she has been trained. So yeah, that was that was sort of a conscious choice that I made. And I sort of said that to Brendan from the outset. And, yeah, I really enjoyed the experience. The training was great. I learned a lot, and I came out of it feeling fairly confident and fairly positive. You know, it's always a little bit daunting. The first couple of walks that you do on your own without a trainer, but I felt that we were as ready as we could be at the end of it. And I think that's important.

15:39S1

So when you looked at retiring your dog, you've got a new one. What makes you come back? You know. What do you like about being a dog guide handler?

15:47S2

I think I think there's a few things. It's a very different form of mobility to using a cane, you know, in that when you use a cane, the cane contact an obstacle, you figure out a way around it. You continue moving forward until your cane contacts another obstacle, often working with a dog, you sometimes you go around obstacles that you didn't even know were there. So it's a much smoother sort of way to get from A to B. I think as well that some of the things that I do, particularly traveling in unfamiliar environments, so and traveling in sort of open spaces like a campground or a caravan park and those sorts of things, I would find that a lot more daunting with a cane than I do working a dog. You know, and I use sort of a combination of my dog and a stellar Trek GPS. And I find that that that combination works really well because the the GPS gives me some idea of, you know, what streets I'm on my direction of travel, some of those things, it just takes a little bit of the guesswork out of it, which means that I can give my dog more confident and potentially meaningful directions. 

So I think that's a big part of it. Also, though, when you're travelling for work, you know, and, you walk into a hotel lobby that you don't necessarily know, being able to ask your dog to find the counter or find the lifts, find the stairs. You know, again, it just takes some of the stress out of it. You could probably do it with a cane, but you might have a few false starts you'd be reliant on. What can I hear? You know. And you still use those things. What can I hear? What can I feel under my feet? You still using all of those clues? But again, it takes a little bit of the guesswork out of it. And when you're doing a week on the road where you're in different places all the time, as I sometimes do for work, anything you can do to sort of reduce some of that mental load, I think is... a significant benefit. So, I would really struggle to do a lot of the things that I do, I think as a cane user, and I was quite a confident cane user, uh, until probably my, my late 20s. But yeah, I think I would now I would potentially struggle to go back to being a sort of a long term cane user.

17:59S1

Out of curiosity, what was it that changed in your 20s, or was there anything in particular that kind of changed?

18:05S2

Yeah, there was, there's a couple of things. One was that I was I had moved to a regional center, so I'd moved from Brisbane up to Rockhampton in central Queensland. And like a lot of country towns and Rocky's a big town as far as country towns go. But like a lot of country towns, it wasn't brilliant in terms of things like audible traffic lights, footpaths, you know, there was a lot of grass footpaths with palm trees growing out of the middle of them. You know, so there wasn't the infrastructure there that I was used to in Brisbane. And so I found getting around quite difficult. Also getting around with a small child. My daughter was only sort of two at that stage and, you know, taking her to kindy and that kind of thing with a cane and trying to keep a hold of her and things was just a little bit harder. 

I think also, I was it was the first time that I was doing a job where I was going to different places. So at that time I was traveling west as far as Barcaldine and Longreach, north as far as Mackay and Moranbah, and south as far as Gladstone and Biloela for my job. So I was going to different campuses and navigating different hotels and, you know, trying to find somewhere to eat and those kinds of things. And I just felt that, you know, having a dog guide would make that a lot easier. Whereas I suppose, you know, maybe ten years earlier as a single bloke, where you're going out to pubs and going to see bands and coming home at 1:00 in the morning, that's probably not necessarily conducive to working a dog, you know, where you're not really in a routine and you're just out being social and things like that. 

So I don't think that, you know, 5 or 10 years earlier, having a dog would have suited the lifestyle that I was leading at that time. But by the time I sort of in my late 20s, as I say, I'd done that move, I was doing a different job. I was a parent. I really felt that having a dog guide would be would be beneficial. And that's when I got my first dog.

19:57S1

So you've now been with Jennifer eight weeks. What are your kind of favorite things about her? You know, and so far, do you have an impression of, you know, why you think you might have been matched?

20:07S2

Oh, look, I think she's a really good match. She's our, you know, things like walking pace is very similar. She's quite driven. Which is good because, you know, we, as I've said, we do do some long days sometimes. Um, so she's she's definitely a good match in that way. She's a high initiative dog, which I need because I'm, I am dealing sometimes with unfamiliar spaces. So yeah, there's lots of reasons why I think she's a good match. Um, but she's also a very calm dog. So if I'm sitting in, if I've got a morning where I'm in the office and just, you know, having meetings or writing, writing papers or something like that, she's quite happy to just sort of sprawl out on a bed or amuse herself with a toy for a couple of hours. You know, so, so she's she's very good in, in in that way. 

I love that she's a very cuddly dog. If I'm sitting down on the floor, she'll just come and tuck herself under my arm for a cuddle. If I'm sitting watching TV, she just kind of sprawls out at my feet and wants a pat and that sort of thing. So she's a very affectionate dog, which I like. She has fitted into the household really well, so she gets on really well with tourists. My wife's dog, she seems to get on our well with our two cats as well and doesn't sort of terrorise them. So, you know, look, there's lots of things that I like about her, and I think that the team at Seeing Eye Dogs have done extremely well in terms of finding me a good match. You know, I had some fairly specific sort of requirements or things that I asked for, things that I needed, and I think that they've done exceptionally well in terms of finding me a good match.

21:42S1

So what is a kind of typical day in the life that you'll be leading with her?

21:47S2

Highly variable really. I mean, so, so so if I'm not travelling, you know, a typical day would be, might be either, you know, leave the house at sort of 6:30 in the morning and I either go to the gym and then go to work, or we hop on a train and just go straight to work. You know, I might sort of have to go out a couple of times during the day to various meetings or client appointments and that sort of thing. I'd usually go for a wander at lunchtime, you know, or earlier, if I'm in need of coffee, you know, and then, you know, catch the train home, sort of, you know, home, sort of, you know, six up, uh, six in the evening. So, that would be a typical day if I'm not travelling. 

If I am l, you know, it could be that I leave home as early as sort of 4:30 in the morning. Hop on a plane, uh, to go somewhere, you know, it might be Sydney, Melbourne, Townsville, wherever, you know, tend some meetings, some client appointments, whatever it might be, and then possibly overnight at that location and more meetings and appointments and things the next day and then fly home. Or it might be that I go there and back in a day, if it's not a long flight, like if it's something like Sydney, you can kind of do Brisbane and Sydney there and back in a day. It's a long day, but you can do it. You know, sometimes work priorities dictate that. That's what you have to do. 

So you know, so sometimes my days are like that. There are some days when I do work from home. And in that instance, you know, it's a day like today where it's blustery and rainy. We might not go anywhere, but equally I might my wife and I might go out for an early morning walk before before work and get a coffee or have have an early breakfast or something like that, you know, and then come, come home and do the work day from home. So it it can vary just depending on what, what a given week looks like really. You know, and Jen is very good at just sort of adapting. And as long as she knows where I am, she seems pretty happy with the world and happy to go with whatever the demands of the day kind of throw at us.

23:48S1

What is it like having two seeing eye dogs in a in a house? And also have you ever like, I mean, I guess you there'd never be any way of kind of getting the two confused with theirs. Tour is quite big for a memory.

23:59S2

Tourist is a bigger dog. He has a different coat to Jenna. He's sort of. His coat's more curly. And yes, he's a bigger dog, so. Yeah, you know, and they all say they have different collars. So, you know, if you pick up the harness and they both come running over, which occasionally happens, you know, which dog you grabbing, you know, within a second or two. 

24:19S1

I figured you would, but I could kind of also understand how if you do have two dogs coming right up at you, that you might like, harness one and then be like, Wait a minute, this is not... yeah...

24:29S2

That's never, never really happened. It's just something you subconsciously just check, make sure you've got the right dog. But no, look, it works fine. They they get on really well. So when, when we're not, you know, if we're just around home here, they're free to just wander around. They've got a big box of toys that they, they play with when we, when we go out together, we do kind of try to alternate who leads. So if we go to our one of our local restaurants or cafes, you know, I might Jenner and I might lead on the way up and Marion and Tourist might lead on the way back. And that way you don't get any sort of competitive rubbish happening between the dogs, where they think that one has to be in the lead all of the time. They get used to to leading and following. So that's something that we consciously do just so that that stuff doesn't happen. 

But no, look, it works well. The dogs get on fine. Jenna being a slightly younger dog is possibly, you know, a bit like the annoying younger sibling in some ways. There's probably times when tourists would rather just laze around and Jenna tries to instigate a game. But, you know, that's... But but then, you know, was it was the other way around when Ebony was the older dog, you know, and Taurus wanted to play. So that's just karma, I suppose. Yeah.

25:42S1

This time of year [? in medicine] here. There.

25:44S2

That's right, that's right. But no, it's not hard. It's easy enough to do. We don't have any problems with it. We're sort of. We've been together a long time now, so we're in a in a routine. We've always both had dogs. So, you know, it's, we don't even really think too much about it. But yeah, it is nice that in the, in the downtime, they do have a, you know, a playmate, a doggy companion, as it were. Yeah, to share their toys with.

26:13S1

That's so sweet. I think, yeah, I could, I can imagine that would kind of put smiles on both of their faces to kind of have each other once they finish work. Got off duty and they're like, yay! Yep.

26:22S2

And that's exactly what happens. They tend to sort of, you know, hurtle around for a couple of minutes, blow off a bit of steam, and then they're calm and they're happy to just, uh, you know, wander around and do their thing. Or they'll sometimes if, you know, the front door's open and the sun streaming in through the front door, they'll they'll share the sunny patch at the front door and lie side by side looking out the door or looking out the window, you know, so they, it's not all full on play. Quite often they're quite calmly doing their thing. And other times, you know, if we're both working from home, uh, Taurus will go and sit in Marion's study and general sit in mine. Or sometimes they'll swap over and I'll end up with Taurus in here, you know.

26:59S1

Like, what are you doing here, sir? That's right. Yeah, yeah. So just to kind of finish off, are there any messages you'd like to share with, you know, general public donors, volunteers, supporters of seeing eye dogs, you name it?

27:10S2

Look, I think there's a couple of things, obviously, you know, as I've said, having a dog has made a massive difference, to me, to my life over the last, you know, 19 years. So absolutely sort of the, the work of our donors and so on is in the contributions they make is really important. I've been really happy with all of my dogs have come from from seeing eye dogs, been happy with all of them. And I guess probably the only other message would be that, you know, for someone you know, handler who is transitioning, try to try to go into it with an open mind. Try not to compare, try to sort of compartmentalise that as best you can so that you're approaching your new dog with an open mind, and you're doing you're setting yourself up to be able to support them. 

Challenging as that is, I think that's super important that you go into it with an open mindset and that you try not to sort of think, Oh, I've done all this before. I know what I'm doing. If you go into it with that more open mindset and sort of say, Okay, this is going to be different, there's going to be things that I'm going to have to learn or relearn. I think overall you have a better a better training experience when you you go into it with that mindset.

28:19S1

And I guess it's kind of that first few weeks are really quite critical in that, in that bonding. So if you get it right, absolutely set you up super well.

28:26S2

Yeah. Absolutely it does. So I think that's probably the they would be the, yo know the perhaps the the take home messages if you like from uh our little chat today. Yeah.

28:37S1

Well thank you so much for joining me on the show.

28:39S2

No problem. Thank you very much for having me.

28:47S1

You've been listening to the chaotic show on Vision Australia Radio. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Damo. If you'd like to find out more about seeing Eye dogs, the work we do, or how you can help, head to our website at said Vision Australia. Org if you're blind or have low vision and are interested in finding out about seeing Eye Dogs eligibility assessment or the application process, head to our website or to apply or find out more. You can phone us on 1 800 zero three 7773 or email us at info at Sidorenko, and the friendly team would be happy to chat about your circumstances. 

If you'd like to find more episodes of this radio show, as well as other podcasts from Vision Australia Radio. Head to our Omni FM page or your preferred podcast provider. Thank you for listening and don't forget to tune in same time next week for another episode of The Seeing Eye Dogs Show on Vision Australia Radio.