I had a thought the other day after seeing a girl with a service dog cross my path. I assume she had a vision disability or might have been completely blind. I didn’t ask her, but noticed how she and the service dog worked together to comfortably get around. In our disabilities studies unit, I have definitely learned to see bodies in a different way. 

But what if there are two bodies working for one goal? There is the animal, who is the pair of eyes and guidance, and there is the human who relies on the animal for sight and nothing else. It seems like a fascinating experience. I don’t want to say that the animal is on the same intellectual level as the person, don’t get me wrong, but to think that two beings can work in tandem so flawlessly is incredible.

Then I started wondering: Is this an extension of the body? Could this be considered one body since the person was relying on the animal for sight? There must be no other experience like it: two beings, two bodies moving through the world together, both aware of each other yet both so finely in tune. 

Maybe when the two work together it is more a combined body. Neither one is an extension of the other, and separately they get on fine alone. Maybe the combined body is just as easily learned as a single body. From what I’ve read and learned in the class, bodies adapt based on the way they need to move through space, and each movement is unique to the individual. 

I would have loved to ask the person what the experience is like. Not to exploit the person, but just to keep learning the nature of others and what it must feel like to experience a body along with another body.