Busker's guiding light:
Mike Strobel (Toronto Sun, Feb 5 2009)"All those new sights, sounds, smells. How is a black lab cross to bear it? So different than the guide dog school in New York.
And a new human. Tagalong Paul Stewart, 54.
'He's been dragging me around ever since I got him home on Monday,' says Tagalong Paul.
Suddenly, a hairy Chihuahua pops up in a furniture store window. Yappy little bugger. Paul and I hate hairy Chihuahuas.
Not so, Peanut. He's off like a shot, tail wagging, Tagalong Paul in tow.
'This is gonna be a challenge,' says Paul, catching his breath, clutching his guitar.
'Gawd I miss Roadie. Gawd I miss my old dog.'"
You never call me darlin'
You never got drunk or died or ran away
Like those country songs all say
It sure is gonna break my heart
When we have to call it a day
Well, that day came. Roadie is pushing 14, old for a seeing eye dog.
So, a few days after New Year's, he and Tagalong Paul took a Greyhound up to Sauble Beach, to Roadie's retirement at a friend's place. Then Paul sends me a postcard from the Guide Dog Foundation school in Smithtown, N.Y.
"I didn't want to work Roadie into the ground," Tagalong Paul tells me later. "It's time for a new road manager."
To keep him from bonking into things. To keep hoodlums from stealing coins from his busking tin. To listen to his country songs with no howling or covering of ears. A kindred spirit on the road.
Well, there's our furry hero schmoozing with the hairy Chihuahua.
Tagalong Paul cuts him some slack.
"Maybe he's nervous because he's a southern dog and never saw so much snow. When I say 'find the curb, Peanut,' he just can't find it.
"And this is a bad time to show him around. The snow deadens echoes and takes away my sense of direction. I can't hear where I'm going."
No problem when Roadie, a yellow lab cross, was in harness. When Paul said "Coffee Time," Roadie led him there.
"Gawd, I love that dog. I like Peanut, but I don't love him."
Not yet.
"I think I'm gonna bring Roadie down to meet him," Paul tells me. "Give him a few pointers.
"Never had any problems with Roadie. He settled in right away."
Those two were fixtures at Bloor and Windermere for a dozen years. Paul plucked his guitar and crooned in his usual doorway and Roadie watched the coins trickle in.
Before that it was Post (as in cereal), another graduate of the Smithtown school.
Paul lost his sight to a brain tumour at age 6, back in New Brunswick. Half a lifetime later, he earned his nickname in a Toronto elevator, Roadie by his side.
"Hello, handsome," a lady purred.
"Hello, yourself," answered Paul, who knows a hot dame when he hears one.
"I was talking to the dog," said the dame.
Ouch, Tagalong Paul.
If it weren't for that dog, I'd have no love at all.
Well, Peanut is a chick magnet, too. Friendly, floppy ears. A gal could do a backflip in those big, brown eyes.
For now, Paul's just happy if the dog doesn't lead him into a lamppost.
And off they go, training finally trumping the charms of the hairy Chihuahua. Down the Sidewalk of Death they stride, street signs to the left of them, parking meters to the right. They dodge the January Pillow Sale placard, but graze a woman gabbing on her cell. Peanut finds every curb.
"We'll work it out," says Tagalong Paul. "They say it might take six months.
"I haven't even heard a sound out of him yet.
"But if he barks like a Chihuahua, I'm sending him back."
