[blparent] leaving family to get a dog guide

Erin Rumer erinrumer at gmail.com
Thu Jun 7 03:40:16 UTC 2012 

Congratulations!  Please let us know how it goes and we'd love to hear your
plans for your children while you're gone.

Erin

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jessica Pitzer
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 8:31 PM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] leaving family to get a dog guide

I'm planning to go to pilot dogs, I got my first dog form there, and I
really wanna go back, I'm just waiting on a class date, and I hope its
sooner than later since he's at the prefect age right now, I've been waiting
since the end of december, but at first I only wanted a poodle, but recently
I told them I'd take a lab or golden too so they said I'd probably get in
pretty soon, I'm hoping either for june, juuly, or august, but i'll take
whatever.
Jessica

On 6/6/12, Jo Elizabeth Pinto <jopinto at msn.com> wrote:
> We don't live our lives in a vacuum, and I think training in a vacuum 
> makes
>
> for a lot of follow-up visits when graduates and dogs go home.  When I 
> was in class with my first dog, I talked to a woman who was on her 
> fifth or sixth, I think.  She said that when she got her first guide, 
> the schools wouldn't even let the handlers play with their dogs at 
> all.  They were working dogs, and play was strongly discouraged.  Now 
> the trainers say that
>
> the dogs deserve to play after all the work they do.  So bit by bit, 
> maybe too slowly, the schools are catching up with the times.
>
> Jo Elizabeth
>
> "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has 
> a song."  Maya Angelou
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Erin Rumer" <erinrumer at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 8:46 PM
> To: "'Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [blparent] leaving family to get a dog guide
>
>> I hear what you're saying and I was thrilled to see how far GDB has 
>> come concerning those issues.  I can tell you that if we had a person 
>> coming into training who has young kids, we would make sure to work 
>> the dogs while pulling a stroller to ensure the dogs had exposure and 
>> a chance to get used to it before the client came into class.  We 
>> also worked dogs while pulling grocery carts, walking with a support 
>> or white cane and more.  Slowly but surely some of the schools are 
>> coming around and seeing how crucial these aspects of our lives are 
>> when working a dog.
>>
>> Erin
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org 
>> [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tammy
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 7:30 PM
>> To: Blind Parents Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [blparent] leaving family to get a dog guide
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Your idea about our kid's training with us is a very good one except 
>> that many of the schools don't believe our kids have any part in our 
>> training,
>>
>> to
>> the point where we shouldn't even be holding their hands or using a 
>> stroller.  These are all ridiculous things for the schools to think, 
>> and when I asked them what I was supposed to do with my child while I 
>> worked my dog even at home after training, they said, oh carry him in 
>> a backpack or have someone with you who can take him.  That of course 
>> is not what I did because it was impractical,  I used a stroller and 
>> the dog got used to it and got really good at walking with the 
>> stroller behind us.
>> Unfortunately
>> the school I went to did not give the dog enough credit, and also 
>> said I shouldn't let the dog and my son interact.  I did listen to 
>> that warning and was very careful to let them play in a very 
>> supervized limited environment, where the dog could go in to his 
>> crate whenever he felt the need to do so which wasn't often I can 
>> tell you.  But if we were allowed to train with the dogs and our 
>> children the schools might get a really good idea some of the 
>> pitfalls of certain matches and it might result in less home visits 
>> after training ends.
>>
>> Tammy
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jennifer Jackson
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 2:59 PM
>> To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [blparent] leaving family to get a dog guide
>>
>> Actually I have always thought that a couple of the bigger schools 
>> should offer a program once a year where our kids could attend with 
>> us. This would let us work out any travel issues with our children 
>> while we have a trainer there. Obviously some kind of child care 
>> arrangement would have to be made for part of the day so we can focus 
>> on our dogs, but this just seems like
>>
>> a
>> workable plan. Especially for those people who live in a rural area 
>> and do not qualify for in home training.
>>
>> All that said, I did go for a dog when my oldest was four. I had 
>> planned to hire someone to watch him during the day and make my 
>> husband juggle the rest of the day. As it turned out, my mother found 
>> out about 6 weeks before I left that she was going to laid off right 
>> before I would be gone and she came and stayed at our home with him.
>>
>> The child who complained regularly about having to walk to school 
>> apparently complained the entire time I was gone about his 
>> grandmother driving him to school. It was a little over half a mile 
>> one way to his school. She always acted like I should appreciate the 
>> opportunity to exercise when I complained about the walk in August. 
>> :) I did not ask her why she was not appreciating that opportunity in 
>> October. I also went to one of the two week training sessions. I 
>> think my son would have had a much more difficult time if I had been 
>> gone longer, or if he had not been able to stay in his usual routine.
>>
>>
>> Jennifer
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org 
>> [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Erin Rumer
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 7:49 PM
>> To: NFB blind parent listserv
>> Subject: [blparent] leaving family to get a dog guide
>>
>> Hello list,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thankfully, my current guide is only 4.5 years old and doing well, 
>> but I got to thinking about when it does come time to get a new 
>> guide, what will that mean for my family and particularly my son.  
>> Assuming my guide now works a nice long life and retires around the 
>> age of 10, my son will then be around
>> 6 or 7.  I know that in-home training may be a possibility depending 
>> on the circumstances, but have any of you gone through having to 
>> leave young children with family or friends while off getting a new 
>> guide and if so, how did your kids fair?  Working at GDB for 3.5 
>> years before my son came along gave me the opportunity to work with 
>> lots of folks coming through for a new dog who have kids at home, but 
>> since I rarely got the chance to speak with the grads after they went 
>> home, I never really got the full picture of how the separation 
>> affected the kids, especially if the parent leaving was a 
>> stay-at-home mom or dad.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>>
>> Erin
>>
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