“I have a story for you,” he said.
Six words I love to hear.
He had been an editor at the Times forever but had recently left the newsroom to teach at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
“Do you know Deni Elliott?” he asked.
I didn’t. But a few years earlier, I had taught a couple of classes at USF St. Pete, and I knew Deni was a revered author and ethicist who chaired the journalism department.
“She has to trade in her guide dog,” he said.
I didn’t know Deni was blind. She used to tell her students, “I don’t see well.”
When we met in 2013, she explained that her vision had been deteriorating since she was young. In 2000, she had hired a trainer to teach her golden retriever puppy, Oriel, to lead her. When Oriel got too tired, she found another professional who taught a German Shepherd, Wylie, to be her companion.
But over the years, her sight worsened and she and Wylie grew to be at odds — pulling at each other, trying to prove who was boss. She knew she had to give him up. Ethically, she said, it was the right thing for them both.
And she decided to take another route forward: Go to a school where dogs are professionally bred and trained to be guides — and matched to people’s specific needs. She enrolled in a 10-day class at the Guiding Eyes for the Blind in upstate New York.
Still, she dreaded being around a bunch of blind people.
She wrote in her journal, “I’m afraid I’ll be frustrated with a dog trained to work with a REALLY blind person.”
Deni let me and Melissa Lyttle, then a Times photographer, come with her to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she wept as she told Wylie goodbye. He became a companion for a veteran with PTSD.
Later, we joined Deni in New York when she met a leggy yellow Lab named Alberta — who changed her world.
I spent months with Deni and Alberta, watching them learn to navigate a mall, ride an escalator, find a classroom. I wrote about them in October 2013: Guide dog leads vision-challenged professor to new insight.
I’ve interviewed thousands of people in my many years as a reporter. Some, I keep in touch with on social media or run into at restaurants and community events. That’s generally as far as the relationships go. Except for Deni.
After the story ran, she invited me to speak to her class, where students interviewed us both about the reporting experience and the article. She asked me to teach another semester at USF. Then to join her book group.
We discovered we share a passion for oysters, wine, theater and The New Yorker. And, above all else, dogs. While she was running her perfectly trained Alberta through fly ball exercises at the Dog Training Club of St. Pete, I was in a room nearby, trying to get my pit bull puppy to sit and stay.
For two years, I watched Deni and her dog grow closer and more confident. Alberta travelled the country with her, led her through airports and conference centers, walked more than 1,000 miles a year. When Alberta got a tumor in — ironically — her eye, I wrote about Deni throwing a birthday party for her partner, who had to retire much too early: Community gathers to thank Alberta, the yellow Lab guide dog who served them all.
It was around then, I think, that we started talking about a book. Alberta, she said, had helped her to do things she never thought possible. Having a guide dog had forced her to acknowledge that she is blind. And it gave her a new understanding of what that relationship can become.
Her book, “Catching Sight,” has just been published by Beacon Press. She wrote it with Graham Buck, who trained Alberta and other guide dogs. It is a memoir mixed with the history of guide dogs and an explanation of genetic engineering.
On June 16, Deni will debut it at Tombolo Books in St. Pete. I’ll ask her about independence, identity and the power of partnership.
Please join us. Come with questions for Deni or me, and meet her darling black Lab partner, Koala.
In the meantime, check out Deni’s blog and a column she recently wrote for the Times: In Florida, fake service dogs challenge public safety.
