Article from Dayton Daily News

By Mary McCarty

Willow Grear wants to believe the boy didn't intend to hit her dog.

Maybe the teen-ager just veered his bike to see if the yellow Labrador guide dog, Cassidy, would run away. Maybe the boys’ two friends, who followed on their 10-speeds, weren't laughing out of cruelty, but out of fear and shame.

That's what the 36-year-old Dayton woman, who has been blind since birth, would like to imagine, anyway. She was raised to believe the best of people, and to give the best in herself. Yet there's a part of her that can't help viewing the world a little differently since the incident Monday that traumatized Cassidy so profoundly she might be ruined as a guide dog.

One of Grear's friends accuses her of being too independent. Yet, she said, "Standing there on Salem Avenue, I felt so alone and so helpless. I couldn't chase those boys and I didn't know if I could get home. I feel like I've lost something. Not my faith in humanity, but
there's a sense that in a time of crisis I may be more alone than I initially thought.

She wants nothing of pity - not for herself, at any rate: "I don't want people to read this story and say, 'Poor Willow. Poor blind victim.’ l want them to say ‘Poor Cassidy."'

No one can rob Grear of her inner strength or independence. Yet she understands more about "small crimes" the purse snatching, the muggings- that have huge impact on people's lives. "All these little stories really aren't so little," Grear says. "They change people's lives quickly, dramatically' People are robbed of their sense of being safe, and it's a long journey to come back from that."

Grear knows she will recover, bolstered by friends who have driven her to the vet and brought solace in the guise of casseroles and hanging plants. She'll continue to volunteer at her church food pantry. She'll continue to take walks in the neighborhood. "I'm not afraid," she said. "This is my home." She'll lead nearly the same life as before,

She wishes she could say the same for Cassidy. "She'll never be the same dog she was before 4,15 Monday," Grear said. "She ,will never have the same bouncy, :energetic, silly personality, and that really hurts.

"The trainer In New York has already told us her temperament will never be the same. There's the very real possibility that, due to one second of ‘fun’ she may not be able to work again."

Cassidy was given to Grear free of charge in September by the New York-based Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind Inc. Months of training, as well as an estimated $25,000, go into the raising of a useful guide dog. :After months of building trust and rapport, she and Cassidy had become a "good team," Grear said. "She is our favorite puppy ever."

Monday afternoon, as they took their daily walk along Salem Avenue near Emerson Avenue, Grear heard the clicking of gears --boys approaching on their 10speed-- and Cassidy's awful squeals as the boy's bike ran over the dog. She heard the laughter of the-other boys, A witness stopped to tell her that the boy turned the bike deliberately to hit the dog, but declined to give her name. She had to catch her bus. She didn't want to get involved.

Grear sat on the sidewalk with Cassidy in her lap, "loving her, and rubbing her up," a long time before attempting the walk home. She tried not to play the "if-if-if' game, tried not to think of what could have happened: She could have been knocked into traffic, or Cassidy could have bolted into the busy street.

Somehow, they made it home safely. Since then, Grear hasn't slept more than an hour at a time, giving around-the-clock care to Cassidy, who startles at slight noises and is terrified to leave the house. "Instead of stewing on the act of violence, I'm trying to put my energy into getting her healthy."

The setback comes at a time when everything else in Grear's life is looking up. She found a job as a telephone receptionist for Pet Behavior and Training Services after a long period of unemployment (handicapped more by carpal tunnel syndrome, she says, than by lack of vision). A divorced parent, she graduated from the welfare system and "now I'm a step up in the world, and have joined_fhe working poor." Daughter Amanda, 14, a student at Stive" Middle School for the Arts, is attending Upward Bound sessions through Sinclair Community College this summer and diligently practicing her flute. "She is going to college," vowed her mother,

Cassidy is so much a part of the family that the' dog appears In the family portrait in the Fairview United Methodist Church directory. "People look at her and say, 'It's just a dog,'" Grear said. "Well, she may be on four legs, but she isn't only a dog. I'm not an extremely dramatic person, but they do have our lives in their hands."

Named after her maternal grandfather, Wilbur Orville Walls, Willow Grear was the daughter of Peggy Grear and the late James Grear, a Kettering police officer. She grew up with three brothers, a tomboy who climbed trees, skateboarded and was just one of the gang. "I don't like to depend on others to get around. I was raised to be self-sufficient." Now her mobility will be restricted until Cassidy recovers or she is given a new guide dog, which could take six months or longer. She
dreads the thought of finding a new home for Cassidy.

"Willow is very strong and gets around wherever she wants to go," said her friend, Sara Dinneen of Centerville. "Her mother taught her to be strong, and she's not a shrinking violet. All of us are just amazed at what this woman does, and all the volunteer work she does.

"She works jigsaw puzzles. She somehow knows what colors should go together, yet she has never seen a color." She can't help wondering about the boys who did this to Cassidy. She hopes they feel guilty about It, that they've learned something,

"These kids are crying out for attention," she said. "They'd never admit it, but that's what they were doing."

She wonders if she knew them, if they had passed on their bikes before. Had she ever taken the time to wave, or say hello? "How many times are teenagers riding by, and we turn that cold shoulder? There are so many little things that could prevent senseless things from happening.

"I know how I feel when someone makes me feel noticed, not just another part of the scenery, that blind lady with the dog. If someone stops to say hi, it makes me feel connected. Maybe these kids just didn't feel connected."

Maybe they couldn't imagine what it feels like to be connected to an animal, a loyal partner, "a member of our family" or to any living being in whom you place absolute trust.

CONTACT Mary McCarty at 225-2209 or e-mail her at mary-mccarty@coxohlo.com

Cassidy is not from Pilot Dogs, but all working dogs deserve our concern.

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