It's the Size of the Heart, Not the Body

Special Note: Don't miss the Breyer Second Chance sale today at 1:00 Eastern Time! It's for those who had VIP, All-Access, and Online tickets to this year's BreyerFest.

Ticket holders can purchase up to two Special Runs along with special, BreyerFest only, tee shirts, a mug, and other things.

I am looking for the crystal, Fortitude, so you can bet I have got my alarm set.

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There are three Guide Dogs, all Labrador Retrievers, in this photo (and one something-doodle. Look closely.) All three who are trained to do the same thing, all who performed well and made differences in their partners' lives. And all very different size-wise. 

Pepper is quite petite for a Lab and is on the couch next to Marianne. Nacho is the yellow Lab on the bottom right. He is retired and lives with Marianne and Bill, Kathy's parents. Nacho is a medium sized Lab.

By Marianne's feet is Tate, Kathy's current Guide. And he is absolutely enormous.

Just look at that massive head!

Pepper and Tate nose to nose.

Kathy and Tate when they were first paired together.

Kathy and Nacho when he was her guide. He is brilliant and to watch him in action was, at times, jaw dropping. There were times Kathy had no idea what challenge he had guided her around or through until someone who had seen it happen told her.

Kathy, Nacho, and I being interviewed by Korean radio station eBUSAN-FM. Culturally, blind people and others with disabilities are not considered as someone who can contribute much to Korean society. 

Interested in exploring that and maybe even changing that perception, the radio station was doing a series investigating how other cultures treated their disabled. They had flown two reporters to the USA to interview Kathy about being a teacher who was blind. I was invited to offer my perspective as her colleague.

Nacho, of course, did his usual exceptional job of getting Kathy there for the interview. He made a striking impression on the interviewers as to what a Guide could and would do in facilitating a blind person's abilities and empowering them for the work force.

Originally this blog post was going to be a humorous look at the size difference between the three dogs. But as I wrote, I was struck again at how much these three dogs, regardless of their physical size, have contributed - both to the person they were partnered with and to those that their partner impacted in turn.

In Kathy's case, it was hundreds of high school students early in her career, and then later it has been as she oversees, instructs, and mentors 75 - 100 new teachers annually. Both Nacho and Tate facilitated that along with Elias and several other Guides before them.

Kathy and Elias at the White House after meeting with President Obama (and Bo, who shared his water bowl with Elias.)

For Pepper, she enabled Sarah to get her doctorate in divinity and become a minister, then guided her as she ministered to her congregation at her church. 

Pepper meeting Sarah's mother, Cindy for the first time. 

More than once Pepper has gotten all "guide-doggy" with me. "The smoke alarm is ringing; get out of the house!" "There is a car coming and you are too slow to beat it across the street so I am going to stand in front of you so you can't move forward. There, it's passed by us. You may cross the street, Lynn."

Clearly, the size of the Guide doesn't matter - it's the heart they have and how much they love and want to protect their partner from harm.

Guide dogs' hearts are huge. They make a difference in many, many ways. How lucky our society is to have them out and about, making life better. And not just for their partner, but for us all.

As Kathy once said, "Two (feet) + Four (paws) = 1 (heart.)

How right she was.