[Ag-eq] guide dogs

Sat Oct 19 03:41:10 UTC 2013

Jewl:

That is quite a story.  Did you look for certain characteristics in the dogs
after Mitsy?

Nella
Quoting Jewel <jewelblanch at kinect.co.nz>:

> Nella!  Having a population of only 5 million with, as would be expected, a
> similarly small blind
> community, New Zealand has only one guide dog school, so we do not have a
> choice:  it is "you takes
> what you get, like it or lump it!"
> Now as for your question of why did I decide to train my own dog?  Thereby,
> hangs a tale and it is
> not a short one!
> I first learned of guide dogs in the 1940s, when, at the age of 7 years,  I
> lost my sight and was
> sent, grudginly, to the only school for blind children:  the New Zealand
> Institute for the Blind,
> now, the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind (RNZFB):  situated in
> Auckland.
> One of our house mistresses, Miss Whitehill, used to read us juniors stories
> before the dormitory
> light was turned out, and one of these was simply called "Pat" and was about
> a German Shepherd who
> had been an United States army dog and then, after the war, he was trained as
> a "Seeing Eye Dog":  a
> genuine Seeing Eye guide dog!
> As the story went, it happened that the man with whom Pat was partnered
> turned out to be his army
> handler who had been blinded by a blow from a sword weilded by a Japanese
> soldier:  no doubt, a
> descendant of the ancient order of Samurai!
> There had always been an instinctive attachment between myself and dogs, so
> this story, and others,
> set the pattern of my future life.
> My first assay into training, if it could be called such, came when I was 16
> or 17.  Mrs. Campbell,
> the matron of McCoy House, the Foundation's residential hostels for young
> women:  called the Foundry
> by the irreverent and the inmates were , * foundlings:  had a dog and she
> agreed in those,
> supposedly, repressive times:  times which I never found to be in the least *
> repressive:  for me to
> take Peter with me up to Mt Hobson:  a nearby extinct/dormant volcano with
> which Auckland is,
> richly, endowed:  I think that, in all, there are 35 ancient and not so
> ancient, volcanic cones on
> which Auckland is built;  the last erruption was of Mt Rangatoto, an island
> volcano in the Hauraki
> Gulf, just a hop, step and jump from the main city area, and that took place
> a mere 600 years ago.
> I had formed an idea of what a guide dog harness looked like so I
> hand-stitched one with leather
> strapping from the crafts department of Epsom Girls Grammar School, the state
> secondary school that
> I attended.
> To get to Mt Hobson, Peter and I had to cross several heavily-used streets
> and make our way through
> Newmarket which was then, and still is, a very busy suburb.
> As it has been with all the dogs I have trained: 8 I think:  I seemed to do
> very little:  I put the
> harness on the dog,and, really, from excursion #1, he/she did the right
> thing, with, the occasional,
> suggestive pointer from me!
> The end of 1959 hove into view when I was to leave Auckland for good and
> return to my parental home
> in Christchurch.
> The concept of dogs leading the blind was still in its infancy in the
> southern hemisphere, the first
> guide dog school having been established by an englishwoman, Betty Bridge in
> Perth West Australia,
> in, circa, the early 50s;  by 1958, Betty Bridge's West Australian school had
> gone and had been
> replaced by 2 schools in Melbourne, Jack Davy Memorial:  later to become
> Royal guide dogs of
> Australia, and the Lady Nell "Seeing Eye"  dog school.  Yes, it really did
> have "Seeing Eye" in its
> name.  I asked Mrs. Gration, the blind owner and director of training about
> the inclusion of Seeing
> Eye and she told me that she had permission from Morristown to use it, but
> that is why it is written
> between quotation marks.  however, by 1959, there were still only a very fiew
> guide dog teams and
> certainly there was no thought, at that time, of New Zealanders getting guide
> dogs, but I was
> determined, no matter what it took, to have one!
> It just so happened that one of my schoolmates, Lynette Simon, nee Brown,
> had a friend, Mrs
> Cashmore who was very interested in the concept of guide dogs, and Lynette
> told her of my ambition.
> Mrs Cashmore had just acquired a German Shepherd puppy bitch from a
> secondhand car yard where she
> was supposed to be a guard dog, but proving herself to be unsuited for that
> job, she was advertised
> in  the newspaper as being available to a new home.
> Mr Cashmore was none too pleased when his better half came home with another
> large dog as they
> already had a Labrador., so to keep the peace, Mrs Cashmore offered Mitzi to
> me to train as a guide
> dog, and from my position of knowing zilch to very little about training dogs
> to do anything, I said
> that she was perfect!
> I returned to Christchurch, told my, horrified,  parents of my plans, and
> Mitzi joined me shortly
> after and the rest is history.  Mitzi was a wonderful guide and retired at
> the age of 12 years.
> in brief:  HAA HAA: there you have it!
> Mitzi's replacement in 1971 was the only school-trained dog I have had.
> My reason for training all my dogs but Emma was because I knew that I could
> do it on my ear, and
> make as good, and in my exalted opinion, a far better job than NZ Guide Dog
> Services which was
> founded in 1973.  New Zealanders had been able to go to and get Australian
> guide dogs since 1962 or
> was it 4? I was offered the chance to get a dog from Ausie, but I felt that
> it would be disloyal to
> Mitzi, and I could not visualise how a school-trained dog could be any better
> than she was!
>
>          Jewel  --------------------------------------------------
> From: <nfoster at extremezone.com>
> Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2013 5:09 AM
> To: "Jewel" <jewelblanch at kinect.co.nz>; "Agricultural and Equestrean Division
> List"
> <ag-eq at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [Ag-eq] guide dogs
>
>
> Jewel:
>
> that's good advice.
>
> Do you have many guide dog training programs in New Zealand?
>
> Also what made you decide to train your own dog rather than getting one from
> a
> guide dog school?
>
> Nella
> Quoting Jewel <jewelblanch at kinect.co.nz>:
>
> > Nella!  If you are getting a new dog, make your requirements, very clear,
> to
> > the school e.g. you need
> > the dog to be able to adjust it walking speed at a command:  slow, normal
> or
> > fast
> > !  Take no bull from them!  It is, perfectly possible, though the trainers
> > may tell you differently,
> > for a dog to work, quite efficiently, at any speed, although you mnay have
> to
> > take a little more
> > care over maintaining your dog's focus when it is creeping along like an
> > elderly and
> > arthritically-challenged snail!
> >
> >           Jewel
> > --------------------------------------------------
>
>
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