It's Snowing!

By Carol Inglis, COMS

The words send pleasing little shivers down my spine as memories of winter fun growing up in Minnesota join the snowflakes swirling down. It's the weekend and it's easy to forget the mountain passes that lace around my teaching territory and the people I work with who have to deal with a new world every time it snows.

I'm an Orientation & Mobility Specialist/Rehab Teacher for Western Colorado. And in this part of the state snow is a factor for nearly 6 months of the year since much of the area is over 8,000 feet above sea level. For my part, driving my 4-wheel drive truck, ice, drifts, and snowstorms can alternately be a challenge, a stressor, or a winter wonderland, depending on where I am and what the road conditions are.

Sometimes the weather throws me little adventures such as giving unprepared Texas hunters my snow chains to get over the pass on their bald tires while I hauled their trailer. Or like the time I picked up a freezing cowboy who was following a runaway calf on foot along the highway. It was a lot warmer in my truck herding it back to the gate, too.

Although I almost prefer the winter to the heat of summer, for many of my clients snow is one more handicap to the rural lifestyle they have chosen -- or happen to find themselves in. For many it is a time of depression and isolation. Because many of these people are elderly and can't drive any longer, they are convinced that getting around to most services or entertainment is dependent on the direct assistance of family members or friends. As a result, especially as they are afraid of falling, the ones who are reluctant to pursue mobility skills on their own in good weather are even more likely to hole up for the winter and simply refuse to deal with it.

There are the exceptions, however. I feel a little guilty thinking of the instructors who work in the city and struggle with real winter O&M on a regular basis, because I find it exciting -- especially when it involves working with individuals and their dog guides. There are two men in particular I enjoyed working with one winter.

The younger man, I'll call him "S.", lived in a small town in northwest Colorado. His dog, a black lab named Mitch, was a real "goer". I teased S. that the speed limit was only 100 miles per hour in town, as I pushed nearly to my fastest pace to keep up with them. Even icy snow-packed streets and sidewalks didn't slow them up much. It was exhilarating to stride briskly along in the crisp air, hearing the snow crackle under our feet, it was so cold.

It was from Mitch that I learned the importance of visual landmarks to a dog, which helped me out later. It took us some figuring to determine why Mitch kept veering with S. out into the middle of the street, when they had to abandon the sidewalks due to too much snow. We finally came to the conclusion that, even though there was no traffic and the walking was easier on the right, Mitch felt a need to guide by the curb on his left.

As soon as we accepted that, there was no further problem. Unfortunately, Mitch's speed eventually led S. to take a bad fall on some glare ice. The poor Lab felt so bad about the incident, it took someone from the animal pound to get him far enough away so that others could help S. Happily, after a lengthy recovery, S. and Mitch were up and blasting away again.

One of my favorite lesson times was with "J." and his dog Rex. J., an older but active man in is late 70's lived up at about 9000 feet against the National Forest in a "development" on Alpine Plateau. Snow there was such a problem, the winding six mile mountain road was only plowed one lane. (I always held my breath the whole half-hour or more that slow road took, hoping there wasn't an oncoming truck or deep wind drift just around the blind corners).

The road ended at a lodge, where everyone left their vehicles and shuttled into their homes via snowmobiles. I was fortunate in that J. and his wife lived at the bottom of a steep hill, just below the lodge. When I'd go in to work with him, I'd load my materials into a backpack, strap on my cross-country skis and zip down to the house.

When we were finished, his wife would bring me out by snowmobile -- sometimes taking little side excursions to show me some gorgeous winter view.

J. was a real outdoorsman, and determined to stay that way. In the summer he and Rex walked 5-6 miles per day on the dirt roads, keeping oriented by the sun and wind. In winter, J. painted some wooden stakes neon orange so he could just barely see with his small remaining tunnel vision. These, he and his wife laid out in a half-mile cross-country ski course so he could get his exercise.

The rest of the time he and Rex would wander along the tracks of the snowmobiles. The first winter J. had Rex, however, he had a hard time getting the dog to take him home. He frequently ended up at the lodge where he had to call his wife over the short wave radio (there were no phones) to come meet him.

I could see the problem when we took a mobility lesson, walking down the plowed road a short way, then returning between snow drifts that stood a good 3 - 4 feet deep. Despite J.'s command "Home, Rex!" Rex consistently took him past the driveway and on toward the lodge.

This went on for several trials, with J. giving the "look for the opening" signal and "Home, Rex!" Even after a few runs with me standing as an obvious clue -- which Rex latched onto with no difficulty -- as soon as he was on his own, Rex continued to bypass the drive. Finally I asked J for a detailed description of how they did things in the summer.

"Nothing different," J. shrugged. "I signal to look for the opening, and Rex always turns there at the fence and takes me down. Though I'll admit, he doesn't like to take me down the more gradual driveway. He prefers this first, steeper one."

Turns "there at the fence..." Then I remembered Mitch and his curb. So, maybe it was Rex and his fence. Rex always turned at the fence, even in summer, preferring the steeper drive that ran down closer to the fence. But in four-foot snowdrifts, there was no fence. So in Rex's opinion there was no driveway. Simple snowmobile tracks were meaningless, since snowmobile tracks ran everywhere across the landscape.

When I explained to J., we both had a good laugh. How obvious the situation was, when you looked at it from a dog's view! All we had to do then was create a new landmark for Rex to hone in on. Once he was on the downward path, the deep snow on either side of the track kept him in a true course.

Although, in a sense, it was a relief not to worry about a possible head-on collision on that narrow road any more, I was really sorry when J. and Rex moved to a small community at a much lower altitude and more "civilized" community. I still enjoyed seeing J and his wife for regular Braille lessons, but I missed scheduling Friday lessons so I could stay late and join them in some after-hours mountain winter recreation!

[Carol is a Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist and Rehab Teacher for a 20 county area taking up nearly the whole western third of the State of Colorado.]