[nagdu] guide dogs and the nfb

[Stepper]

Hi to all.

it does come to me that it looks like that I am sure there's many people that end up with a dog with very little cane travel time, but end up going for a dog.
After getting through that whole process I am sure there is many guide users that then discover there is much more to life then they thought.
That they may not be limited as they once believed.
So they inquire after finding out there's much more to this being blind deal them maybe a few hours with a cane, and a guide dog.

But when they try and find a center they are told either "no Dogs" or leave your dogs here or there. There reaction is, "What! are you nuts?" So they end up going no further.
But what if there was a school for guide dogs users only?
Then would we have cane users banging on the doors, saying, "No dogs, I want cane travel?"
 I have no idea how many full service residential training centers there are in the US.
However, it does seem to me that it may be possible that one could be established. If its for guide dog users only, have a guide dog instructor that could help those that need boning up in there travel skills with there dogs.
If anyone either gets Newsreel for the blind cassette, mp3, or over the net audio magazine there was a   lady that shared her experiences. 
They went like this, by the way I am talking about October's issue.
One lady said that many years ago she got a total of two hours cane travel by a traveling cane instructor only before the instructor signed off for her to go for a dog.
Why? The town she lived in was so small it had not one traffic light.
The lady and instructor had to go to the next town over to find a stop light.
This lady went for many years knowing she needed added cane skills even if she had guide dogs. Some how she heard of the Leader Dog one week advanced cane travel course.

Leader Dogs pays for everything, including transportation, room and board, and one week of travel instructing with the long white cane.
This woman went on to say there were three people in her class. 
That each one of the three students had one to one instruction for the five days they were in class.
Lastly, this lady said she had gotten all four of her dogs from Seeing Eye.
She said they accepted her with no problem.
When she was done, they didn't try and hard sell her on coming back for a Leader Dog.
Wayne talks about using dogs in his training center half time. Wayne's center and Leader Dog is doing something way ahead of the curve it looks like.
I understand you can also go to Ld for advanced computer training as well.
If there's enough blind guys to establish a market for guides only that may work as well.
When I went through the Idaho program back in 1985 I had to fight for it, but used my dog the whole nine months switching with a cane and my dog every other class throughout the day.
It worked fine.
Stepper