Welcome to my little corner of the internet where your main host is my guide dog. Most people on my Facebook page knows my guide dog’s name. But for the sake of mystery of those unfortunate souls that stumbled into this blog, I will keep it anonymous for now until I reveal on dog day. I mean you can google it but why ruin the fun?

This summer will mark 5 years since I been match with my four-legged angel. I post a lot about my dog and our memorable moments on my Facebook. I decided to create this series of blog in celebration of the past 5 years. So, let us start from the beginning.

I was born in Cali, Colombia. As an infant, I was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma bilateral. Fast-forward 2.5 years later, my mom and I are flown into New York City for better medical treatment. I spent about the first 8 years of my life battling cancer. At some point, my mom meets my stepdad, and they go on to have two children. My younger sister is Melanie, and my youngest brother is Jeremy. I do have an older brother name Angel. Har, har, Angela and Angel. Would you believe me if I told you my biological father’s name is Jesus David? I can not make this stuff up.

Anyways, at some point, my parents enroll me in a school for the blind and visually impaired. When I was 10 years old, I was introduced to the concept of a guide dog. By this point, my family had an English Cocker Spaniel for about 4 years. I named him Clifford when I was 6 years old. I was a huge fan of Clifford the big red dog. Prior to losing my sight when I was five, my parents and I spent a lot of times in the hospital. This meant entertaining a 4-year-old with drawing activities, movies, and books.

I remember my doctor telling me bluntly, that in order to save my life, he had to remove my eyes. With that, I made it an effort to absorb everything and anything with sight. This meant binge watching Winnie the Poo, Clifford, Dragon Tail, Arthur… all sorts of cartoons. I wanted to have a permanent picture in my memory for the day that I would be cloaked in darkness. Ok so, I do not actually see darkness. But it just sounded more poetic in my head.

When I was introduced to the concept of a guide dog, my mobility instructor showed me an episode of Clifford, puppy’s day, where he meets a seeing eye dog. Clifford struggles to comprehend why his new friend would ignore him when he saw her and her handler out and about. My mobility instructor had a stuffed guide dog with a harness, and she took me on a Juno walk. Typically, a Juno walk is when an instructor holds the other end of a harness to simulate working with a guide dog. It was in that very moment, that I knew I wanted a guide dog when I grew up. I counted down to the year where I could apply for one. Two years later, I went on my first tour of Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Back then, classes were 6 weeks long and the bedrooms had two beds. So, you had to roommate with another handler. I returned 2 years later for another tour, and they were no longer doing double rooms. My final tour of Guiding Eyes was when I was 16 years old. My mobility instructor knew how much I enjoyed these presentations, so she always invited me along these school trips. Ideally, they were trying to bring different groups of students each visit, but I was squeezed into every single group! I never got bored of listening to these presentation especially because we got to do Juno walks with dogs in training.

I decided to apply for a dog my senior year of High School. College was definitely in my future, and I wanted to have a guide dog for when I went off to school.