[nagdu] Telescoping canes
Ann Edie
annedie at nycap.rr.com
Sun Dec 6 19:51:50 UTC 2009
Hi, Linda and everyone,
My present job is very itinerant. I visit homes, schools, preschools, and
hospitals over an area of 5 or more counties to visit my students. There is
no way I could achieve all the required travel except by having my own car
and driver. Consequently, I am delivered door to door by my driver, who
happens to be my retired research chemist husband. So there is very little
work for a guide animal in my present work day. I use my cane within the
buildings, although it would be nice sometimes to have Panda there to help
me navigate around the buildings.
Once I get to my locations, there is often so little space that I can hardly
find a spot to put down my bag of teaching materials, let alone a place to
put a guide dog or horse. Many of the homes I visit present conditions that
I would not want to expose a guide animal to. And in the schools and
classrooms some of the children do have many sorts of allergies and many
have compromised respiratory systems. Some are on ventilators. I would
have to get medical clearance to bring any sort of animal into these places,
I think.
On top of all this, since I visit so many schools and have no "home base" or
classroom space to call my own, I am a guest for an hour or even less in
someone else's classroom. Neither the staff nor the children are accustomed
to seeing a blind person traveling with a cane, let alone with a guide dog
or guide horse. I would have to do a lot of education and desensitization
to get to the point where my appearance in the halls of a school wouldn't
cause a complete disruption of the normal routine. While I am sure that
this effort would be very beneficial educationally for the children and
adults in those environments, I really prefer to just go about my business
of working with the visually impaired children and their peers and
caregivers without the distraction of a very attractive animal, whether dog
or horse, to constantly explain. People unfamiliar with the work of service
animals tend to think it's all about the animal, rather than being just a
way for a blind person to go about her life. People have a very hard time
allowing the animal to just be there, especially when that animal is not a
constant presence, but only an occasional visitor.
So, the long and the short of it is that I don't usually bring Panda to work
with me. I have brought her to schools upon request, and I do do
educational talks about blindness for school groups, sometimes with Panda
present and sometimes without Panda. For example, in January I am scheduled
to do a talk about Louis Braille and braille literacy for the kindergarten
through 3rd grade students at one of the elementary schools where I work.
The talk is supposed to be only about 10 or 15 minutes. If I bring Panda,
the event will inevitably turn into a question and answer session about
guide horses. So I will probably not take Panda, so that I can keep the
focus of the talk on how blind people read and write and perform other
normal activities of life. I may mention or show pictures of blind people
traveling with a guide dog or a guide horse, and I will demonstrate the use
of the white cane, which many of the children will have observed me using
while walking around the school building. I will probably touch on how
blind people do other daily activities, like tell time, engage in sports and
games, make art and music, help their kids do homework, and use a telephone
and computer. At other times, I talk specifically about Panda, her
training, and about guide and service animals and the etiquette of
interacting with service animals and their handlers. But I find it
difficult in a short presentation to cover all of this territory, so I tend
to keep them pretty much separate.
I do use Panda daily for walks and trips around my town and to do errands
and on out of town trips as well. If I were still working in one school or
one school district and were traveling on foot or by public transportation,
I would probably choose to have my guide with me all the time during my work
day. But in my current working conditions, if I had a guide dog instead of
a guide horse, I don't know whether I would want to take the dog into many
of the places where I have to go. The guide would probably spend a lot of
time sitting out in the car with my husband waiting for me to come out, and
then spend more time in the car traveling to the next place--not much of a
life for either a guide dog or a guide horse.
Unlike what might be expected of a guide dog, Panda seems to have adjusted
well to not being with me during the work day. She is always glad to see me
upon my return home and eager to spend the evening with me and to go out on
our walks and adventures. But she doesn't get "rusty" or lose her working
skills and she doesn't seem to need to be at my knee all the time to
maintain our close relationship. So, for the time being at least, our
current mode of operation seems to be working well enough. Some time in the
not too distant future I would like to change my lifestyle to permit Panda
and I to work together for more of the day. But that is for the future....
Best,
Ann
----- Original Message ----
From: "Linda Gwizdak" <linda.gwizdak at cox.net>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users"
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Telescoping canes
> Ann,
> I forgot to ask - does Panda hang around the classroom with you and the
> kids. Or do you use a cane to go to work and leave the mini horse at home?
>
> Linda and Landon
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ann Edie" <annedie at nycap.rr.com>
> To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users"
> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009 12:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] Telescoping canes
>
>
>> Hi, All,
>>
>> When my first guide dog got ill and then died while still in service (at
>> age 11), I was teaching in a high school and walking to and from school
>> each day. I began using an NFB telescoping cane full-time at that time.
>> I liked the sleek design and light weight of it. When collapsed, it
>> looked like a white police night stick or a designer flashlight.
>> However, I found that it did tend to collapse at inconvenient times, like
>> in the middle of a street crossing if it hit a crack or bump in the
>> pavement, and that this happened even if I had given each segment a twist
>> when opening it. On the other hand, two of the segments would sometimes
>> fuse together and refuse to collapse at all, which made it difficult to
>> stow away.
>>
>> But the major disadvantage of the telescoping cane that I found was that
>> it did not stand up well to the weight of 200-pound high school boys who
>> always seemed to either be walking backwards down the high school
>> corridors yelling something to their friends down the hall, oblivious to
>> what was behind them, or who thought it was fun to jump over the white
>> stick instead of walking around the blind teacher. As a result of these
>> travel conditions, I had several shattered telescoping canes within a
>> short period of time. And since they do shatter into dangerously sharp
>> shards, rather than simply bending like an aluminum cane usually does, I
>> soon gave up on the telescoping canes and switched to the old reliable
>> aluminum folding models.
>>
>> I agree with the NFB that the "feel" of the lightweight straight cane is
>> probably the most clear and distinct, and that it is therefore probably
>> the best cane for gaining information about the travel environment.
>> However, I do not think that it is necessary to exclusively use a long,
>> straight, white cane in order to demonstrate one's acceptance of
>> blindness. There are certainly circumstances in which a telescoping or
>> folding cane is more suitable. I'm glad to see that the NFB is flexible
>> enough to be selling other types of canes besides the straight canes.
>>
>> I currently work with a number of preschool and early school age children
>> in classroom and daycare settings where there are many children present,
>> both children with disabilities and those without disabilities, and I
>> spend most of my time either on the floor playing with them or sitting at
>> child-sized tables working with my little students. There is no corner
>> where I could leave a straight cane where some curious child would not
>> walk off with it to use as a spear or sword in a game of soldiers or
>> knights, putting his classmates at great risk of injury. Besides, I need
>> the cane for moving about the classrooms with their many toys and
>> children strewn across the floor. If I used a straight cane and laid it
>> on the floor whenever I sat down, the little ones would be tripping over
>> it and trying to pry it out from under me. So I use a folding cane, and
>> every time I sit down somewhere, I fold it up and place it under some
>> part of my body because if I don't maintain contact with it, someone will
>> assume it is just one of the toys and walk off with it. Despite the fact
>> that I fold and unfold my cane many times a day, the elastic seems to
>> hold up pretty well, and I have only had to replace the elastic a couple
>> of times, which is much easier and less expensive than replacing a
>> shattered telescoping cane.
>>
>> When I worked with my 3 guide dogs, and now when I travel with my
>> miniature horse guide, I still carry a folding cane in my backpack, just
>> in case I might want to use it for any number of reasons.
>>
>> My canes have definitely become longer over the years that I have been
>> using them, and I definitely prefer a longer cane. When I was first
>> instructed on the use of the white mobility cane in the early 1980's, the
>> standard was still for a cane which only came up to the user's mid chest.
>> I now use a cane which comes up to my chin at least, if not up to my
>> nose.
>>
>> It's nice to have options to experiment with--and we haven't even touched
>> on the subject of the many types of cane tips out there! For myself, the
>> traditional straight cane tip seems to be the most practical and
>> long-lasting.
>>
>> Thanks for the discussion of this interesting topic.
>>
>> Best,
>> Ann
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione at access.net>
>> To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users"
>> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 9:05 AM
>> Subject: [nagdu] Telescoping canes
>>
>>
>>> The NFB stgore sells telescoping canes in a whole range of lengths.
>>> Independent Living Aids sells the little cane Tami was talking about,
>>> which is very short, but would suffice in a pinch and is very convenient
>>> to carry around as a backup.
>>>
>>> I carry a telescoping cane in my backpack in case of emergencies or
>>> whatever. I like them for situations where I need the cane to get
>>> small,
>>> but I find that they sometimes telescope when I don't want them to, like
>>> when they hit a crack in the sidewalk. The trick is to twist the parts
>>> a
>>> little bit when the cane is extended, which helps the thing not to
>>> collapse unexpectedly, though it still can sometimes.
>>> For that reason, if I am not concerned about the size of my cane when
>>> I'm
>>> sitting around, I prefer a straight cane.
>>> The telescoping cane is a lot less bulky than the folding cane. But my
>>> husband has a very sturdy folding cane, which he prefers. He likes it
>>> because it's really sturdy, for when people step on it. For me though,
>>> it's too heavy.
>>> HTH.
>>> Tracy
>>>
>>>> I keep hearing about these telescope canes. I have a solid one I got
>>>> through
>>>> the nfb and another one which I think you described a thinner one I use
>>>> for
>>>> formal events and such. Then I have another one which folds up into 4
>>>> pieces
>>>> and has an elastic cord running through it. I am curious about the
>>>> telescope cane I keep hearing about. Tell me where I might be able to
>>>> find
>>>> one please?
>>>> Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
>>>> CEO/Founder
>>>> My Blind Spot, Inc.
>>>> 90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
>>>> New York, New York 10004
>>>> www.myblindspot.org
>>>> PH: 917-553-0347
>>>> Fax: 212-858-5759
>>>> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who
>>>> is
>>>> doing it."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>>> Behalf
>>>> Of Tamara Smith-Kinney
>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 8:27 PM
>>>> To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
>>>> Subject: Re: [nagdu] guide dog responsibilities
>>>>
>>>> Rebecca,
>>>>
>>>> You raise really great points. It's easy to get caught up in the
>>>> reason
>>>> why
>>>> to chose a guide dog. But it gives a good perspective to hear a guide
>>>> dog
>>>> user's reasons why she chose *not* to have a guide dog again.
>>>>
>>>> I can really see how a cane would be more useful in the situations you
>>>> describe. Even without a squirming, stinky toddler, there have been a
>>>> couple of times I wished I had a cane to hand to find out what the heck
>>>> is
>>>> all around me. /smile/ My telescoping cane sort of blew up and no
>>>> longer
>>>> telescopes, and it was a while before I got a new identity cane -- this
>>>> is
>>>> a
>>>> tiny, skinny folding cane, very light and fragile, but it does fit in
>>>> my
>>>> pocket or purse. Only when it's in my current purse, which carries a
>>>> bunch
>>>> of junk but is totally impractically for someone with her other hand
>>>> full
>>>> (I
>>>> can't carry on my dog shoulder because it falls off and bonks the poor
>>>> dog),
>>>> I can't just whip it out to use to investigate! Usually where I start
>>>> feeling a bit lost and confused is public restrooms, where I really
>>>> don't
>>>> want to touch anything to find what it is Mitzi is showing me.
>>>> /shudder/
>>>>
>>>> We will not talk about the porta potty incident. I am still grossed
>>>> out!
>>>> And I made it a point to stop procrastinating getting a "pocket cane."
>>>> /grin/
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for sharing.
>>>>
>>>> Tami Smith-Kinney
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>>> Behalf
>>>> Of Pickrell, Rebecca M (IS)
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 9:34 AM
>>>> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
>>>> Subject: Re: [nagdu] guide dog responsibilities
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you Meghan.
>>>> A couple other things which I failed to leave out of my earlier post.
>>>> I found that when I was using a dog, people expected the dog to just
>>>> know things. For example, I wanted a high chair for my daughter and
>>>> when
>>>> I asked for assistance, the question was "Can't your dog find one"? She
>>>> could find chairs, but she couldn't distinguish between a high chair
>>>> and
>>>> a big person chair. So, no, in this case, she couldn't do the task I
>>>> asked of her. When I used my cane, people were happy to help. The same
>>>> thing was true of diaper changing facilities. Some places have changing
>>>> tables in the rest rooms, some places hve tables that come down from
>>>> the
>>>> wall, and some have nothing. Other places have "diaper changing areas".
>>>> My dog couldn't find the tables that fold out of the wall, and she
>>>> treated the kind that are standing like counters. I find changing a
>>>> diaper on the floor extremely painful and prefer to use a surface when
>>>> possible, though I also want to use the right surface if one is
>>>> present.
>>>> The general attitude seemed to be "Won't the dog find what you need?" I
>>>> even had someone ask me once, when my daughter was having a red-zone
>>>> tantrum once "Why won't the dog calm her down"?
>>>> With a cane, I get none of this. People are willing to show me things,
>>>> sometimes a little too much, but at least they have the right attitude
>>>> even if it may be for the wrong reasons. And, wrong reasons don't much
>>>> matter when you've got a squirming kid with a poopie diaper stinking up
>>>> the joint.
>>>> The other thing is that you cannot ever leave a child alone. So if I
>>>> got
>>>> into a situation where I had to decide which one I was going to take,
>>>> it
>>>> was always the kid. I can remember once trying to get ready to go
>>>> someplace, my daughter was fussy, it was pouring down rain, and I just
>>>> couldn't deal with putting her down, getting my coat on, taking the dog
>>>> out to go park, and then getting my daughter ready. I'd already gotten
>>>> wet once taking the dog out at her regularly scheduled park break which
>>>> was about an hour before we were to head out, I didn't think she would
>>>> use the bathroom, and I simply didn't have it in me to take her out
>>>> again for an event that was unlikely to happen. So, I left the dog
>>>> home
>>>> and used my cane. Leaving my daughter home and taking the dog was not
>>>> an
>>>> option legally or morally. We can debate all day if I morally was in
>>>> the
>>>> right with regard to the dog, but I didn't do anything illegal. I left
>>>> water for her, I'd be home soon and she'd had a chance to go park.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Finally, it's physically easier to use a cane with my daughter. She
>>>> likes to stop and look at random things, flowers, trucks, other kids,
>>>> lights, and my dog was getting frustrated. She didn't understand why we
>>>> didn't keep on moving. She would also get frustrated when I'd use my
>>>> hands to look for the forementioned changing tables. She would either
>>>> take me to the sink or the toilet, or she'd shut down and be like
>>>> "Well,
>>>> if you don't want me to guide in here, then I just won't guide when
>>>> we're done either".I sympathize with the dog's perspective as nobody
>>>> likes to feel useless, but I also couldn't deal with it either. It just
>>>> took too much out of me.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>>> Behalf Of Meghan Whalen
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 10:25 AM
>>>> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
>>>> Subject: Re: [nagdu] guide dog responsibilities
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for this post. I can tell a lot of time/thought went into
>>>> it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for sharing your thoughts Bebecca.
>>>>
>>>> meghan
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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