"Now, what is the girl's condition?"

*Disclaimer - I wrote this blog in February but Blogger didn't actually post it... so none of this was recent.*

"Now, what is the girl's condition?"

She loves puppies, that's what. 

Yes indeed, this question was directed at my Provost several times over the weekend while he, my friend James, Tucker and I were attending the Emerging Issues Conference in Raleigh.  Apparently, several times when I left our table, people would lean over and ask Dr. Leslie and James what my "condition" might be.

I was constantly amazed at how many times this question was posed.  Not only were these supposedly highly intelligent people, but I'm pretty sure his jacket says "Puppy being raised for Leader Dogs for the Blind"...  Granted, the people at our table may not have been able to see the jacket, but I still feel like there are better ways to ask that question.

My other favorite moment of misunderstanding came when I took Tucker out for a walk one day.  We had gone a block or two from the convention center and as we were coming back, I decided to put his jacket on early instead of waiting until we got right next to the building.  As we began to cross the last street to the center, the driver of the car that was stopped at the red light looked at me, looked at Tucker, and popped his car into reverse, backing a good ten feet or so behind the crosswalk.  I guess he was afraid that the blind girl was going to run into his car?  I wonder what he thought Tucker's job was...

Regardless, the conference was good and Tucker was excellent.  He sat through endless hours of meetings and presentations and even helped me introduce one of the speakers.  We were accident free and he did a pretty good job walking around the city nicely during our free time, though he would get really excited when he saw grass.  I will say one thing, Raleigh doesn't make it easy to find a place for the puppy to go "park."  He was forced (though it is good for his training) to use the concrete sidewalk a time or two, and even a flowerbed once.  No one in the hotel gave me a hard time (kudos to you, Sheraton) and Tucker did pretty well with finding the room and the elevator. 

Per usual, however, he did have his moments, though they were always away from the public eye.  At one point I stepped out of the hotel room briefly (literally for a second or two) and when I opened the door, he wasn't waiting for me to return as I expected, but sitting atop the queen mattress with my shorts in his mouth. ;)  Little stinker. 

The last day of the conference, the students put on a flash mob.  Again, in typical Tucker fashion, he not only made it on a video recording of the flash mob, but is stretching, which makes it look like he's taking a bow.  :) 

As I was taking this picture, I heard some ladies behind me say, "Oh my gosh look at that puppy!  I can't believe he's just sitting there posing!"  :)