[Ag-eq] guide dogs

Sat Nov 2 05:06:34 UTC 2013

Hi, barb here. 

I have been looking into getting a guide  dog, and I think I have found the answers to almost all of my questions.  
I work in a health club, or gym, I do laundry and locker room attendant.   My only real problem I can see is where the dog will be when I am working.  I don't need the dog to guide me around my job site, he would go with me on breaks to find lunch,  the rest of the time  he would be hanging out until I go home.  I know people who work at desks can have to dog by their desk or in the office or cubicle.  I don't have a office or cubicle, I have a small room with washers dryers and water heaters.  Plus the towels for the club or stored there.  I don't want the club to get in trouble with the health department over my dog.  

so I am asking is do anyone out there Has or had a guide dog and worked in a factory, food service, or other place that wasn't an office.  I just need to know what my rights are and where the health department steps in.   I don't want to get the dog and then find out my dog is in some office on the other side of the building locked up. 

I want the dog to be happy to. 

thanks 
Barb 

----- Original Message -----

From: nfoster at extremezone.com 
To: "Jewel" <jewelblanch at kinect.co.nz>, "Agricultural and Equestrean Division List" <ag-eq at nfbnet.org> 
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2013 10:41:10 PM 
Subject: Re: [Ag-eq] guide dogs 

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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