Close encounter of the suspicious kind

Today, for the first time, Trooper and I encountered another service dog in a restaurant.

The occasion was lunch at a favorite cafe across the street from our condo building.

The other dog was a big golden retriever, beautifully mannered and calm even in the enthusiastic face of Trooper, a bumptious terrier who never met a dog he didn't want to play with.

I asked his handler what the dog did for her. I didn't catch everything she said, but it seemed that the dog helps her with postsurgical balance and walking. A sturdy handgrip lay on the back of the service-dog vest. That seemed reasonable to me.

But then I noticed that the handler, an older woman, repeatedly fed scraps from her lunch to the dog—an absolute breach of service-dog etiquette and a disturbing indication that what appears to be a service dog team may not be genuine.

What's more, the handler allowed the retriever to sprawl right in the middle of foot traffic rather than tuck the dog out of the way, as the Americans with Disabilities Act requires. That was not only unmannerly but also dangerous; a waiter had to step gingerly over the dog while carrying plates to patrons. On the way out I had to pick up Trooper to get past the retriever.

Maybe that service dog team was real—that gorgeous, well-behaved golden could indeed have been trained specially to perform a service for a person with disabilities—but that woman clearly had no idea how to behave and handle her dog.

I don't have doubts about the dog's authenticity. I do hers.

OCT. 29: A friend in Washington, D.C., who knows something about service dogs says she has unhappily watched several legitimate handlers doing the same thing that woman did—feeding table scraps and paying no attention to the dog's whereabouts. The human side of a team sometimes needs to be retrained in service-dog etiquette.

Sheriff's star

Mike P., a regular reader of this blog, suggested I fill up a little of the blank space on the wraparound cover of The Riddle of Billy Gibbs (see the post just below) with a sheriff's star.

Capital idea, I thought. So I set to work with some public-domain clip art and my trusty Photoshop Elements software and came up with the accompanying effort.

Not too bad, but I need to tweak the background color of the circular inset so that it doesn't look quite so flat and artificial. Also I need to see if I can figure out how to render "Sheriff's Department" right side up rather than upside down. Maybe I should gray all of the text slightly, so that the art doesn't look so cut-and-pasted.

I'm no expert with Photoshop Elements, but it's not difficult to learn. What's hard is remembering all the steps involved in fashioning a piece of artwork.

Workin' on the Railroad

Here's my latest attempt at a wraparound cover for The Riddle of Billy Gibbs, coming in January. The first try consisted of the present front cover, plus yellow text on a flopped image of the cover photograph for the back cover.

Too many people said the back cover was hard to read. I had to agree.

So I threw out that flopped image and used a plain light blue background instead for the back cover and spine, with black text. I've tried hard to match the blue with one of the shades on the front cover, but I'm just not skilled enough with Photoshop Elements. I think the current blue is good enough for government work.

What say ye?

(Click on the photo for a large version.)

Teaser: Have a free read of Chapter One

Chapter One of The Riddle of Billy Gibbs (coming in January) is now online at henrykisor.com.