Guide horses in the next aisle
We saw Mexicali Rose, a guide horse in training, walking down Broadway last summer.
Jess sent along this story from the NYT Mag about the proliferation of service animals -- it opens with the story of a blind woman in Albany who uses a guide horse:
There are no sidewalks in Edie's neighborhood, so Panda led her along the street's edge, maneuvering around drainage ditches, mailboxes and bags of raked leaves. At one point, Panda paused, waited for a car to pass, then veered into the road to avoid a group of children running toward them swinging glow sticks. She led Edie onto a lawn so she wouldn't hit her head on the side mirror of a parked van, then to a traffic pole at a busy intersection, where she stopped and tapped her hoof. "Find the button," Edie said. Panda raised her head inches from the pole so Edie could run her hand along Panda's nose to find and press the "walk" signal button.
Check out this pic of Edie and Panda in Staples.
We'd never heard of using horses this way until this past summer. We were sitting in the window of the Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga when we saw a woman cross the street with the tiniest horse we'd ever seen.
(Thanks, Jess!)
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Comments
Looks yummy too.
... said -B on Jan 5, 2009 at 7:02 PM | link
I love everything about this story.
... said jibberjabber on Jan 5, 2009 at 8:48 PM | link