DALLAS — Merrick has collapsed into a heap of dark fur, stretched out on the carpet like a piece of charred driftwood on a beach.
“He’s letting go nicely,” said Carla Campbell, gently working the dog’s back and legs. “He really needed this.”
It’s hard enough being a guide dog when you’re responsible for safely delivering blind and visually impaired adults from home to work and back again, across streets and through aisles, day in and day out. But add a few hundred other dogs and a strange environment to the mix, and suddenly those canine quads are feeling pretty tense.
The 54th annual conference of the Arlington, Va.-based advocacy group American Council of the Blind, making its first visit to Dallas, is expected to draw 1,500 attendees — along with about 300 guide dogs, many of whom strode the expansive lobbies and unfamiliar corridors Wednesday with their handlers in trusting tow.
Campbell, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based canine body worker, is here to help, soothing dozens of burned-out doggies at this week’s annual conference, which runs through Saturday at the Sheraton Dallas.
“This is probably the most stressful environment these dogs will ever have in their career,” said Carl Richardson, Merrick’s visually impaired owner, from Boston. “It’s good to give them a little break and let them relax.”
Trying to avoid canes, dealing with revolving doors and escalators, having to quash the urge to interact with all the other dogs: It was all a tiny bit stressful.
“They’re used to big crowds, but they’re not used to big crowds that can’t see them,” Campbell said. “They’re having to essentially work upstream the whole time.”
Campbell, who lost her sight to glaucoma, ditched a technical support job to pursue canine and equine massage.
“I always thought I’d be working with animals,” she said.
Her stints at the council’s annual conferences are a treat for the many dogs whose owners have brought them to her through the years for relaxation and therapy. Most are Labradors and Golden Retrievers, breeds that have proven themselves fit for guide-dog work in terms of intelligence, size and strength.
Campbell usually treats about 10 dogs daily at the conference, though her one-day record is 17. She works their muscles, joints, neck and back and places made sore by snug harnesses.
“I’ve been through several dogs with different people,” she said.
