Bad dog

I was walking to school today along Broadway when I saw several blind people getting off a bus. One had a white cane, but three or four had seeing eye dogs. They all got off the bus and were walking along, and I was admiring the concentration and aplomb of their seeing eye dogs, who were plodding steadily forward, when one of them (the dogs) suddenly turned to sniff the legs of a mailbox. The dog stopped dead in its tracks and the blind person behind it said, "Whoa!" and kind of stumbled into the dog, who clearly had no intention of moving.

At this point I kind of laughed a little bit, which I hope those blind people with their heightened sense of hearing didn't detect. I have never seen a bad seeing eye dog before. I mean, this one obviously missed a day of training, and he probably won't last long "out in the field," as they say. Maybe he was new, I don't know. I'm sure they straightened it all out in the end.