[nagdu] NAGDU and NFB centers

[Angie Matney]

Hi Marion,

Thanks for the information. I have a few questions about the cession.

I firmly believe a panel discussion, including someone who advocates for more inclusion of guide dogs at NFB and similar centers, would be more productive than a presentation by Center staff. Is this a possibility? I believe that a debate would 
be more beneficial to everyone than a question-and-answer session that will necessarily be vary brief. 

Also, I hope the cession is honest and open enough that questions can be raised concerning center students' perceptions of guide-dog use. In particular, I'd like to know if anything was done in the wake of Catherine 
Kudlick's article in the May, 2005, issue of the Monitor (http://www.nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm05/bm0505/bm050503.htm). In that article, Dr. Kudlick presents her interpretation of NFB "philosophy and policies" on guide-dog use, 
based on her time as a student at CCB:

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The NFB's sense of rugged independence also translated into its philosophy and policies that discouraged using dog guides. Because numerous schools across
the country specialize in working with dogs, a rehab center like the CCB could reasonably argue that it should specialize in teaching cane travel. Besides,
people should first have good cane mobility skills, lest they find themselves without their dog for some reason. But I think something else was also at
work: the NFB seemed to be engaging with the sighted world's long-held belief that dogs served the more needy--and therefore less competent, more feminized--blind,
that the dog leads the person rather than the person controlling the dog like any other tool. Rightly or wrongly, we internalized the message that using
a dog was tantamount to copping out and creating unnecessary barriers with the sighted world because animals are intrusive.

Still the center didn't rule out dogs altogether. Among the students the ex-Hell's Angel Gavin had a dog, an unpleasant, high-strung German shepherd that
wore a bandanna. Keyla had to spend most of her days curled up under one of the tables in the meeting room while her owner learned to travel with a long,
rigid cane outside. I never understood why Gavin had Keyla in the first place, especially since he was clearly such a talented cane traveler; I could only
figure that her surly growls helped maintain his tough-guy biker persona in a way a white cane never could. More often our travel teachers gave certain
students, including Harriet and Don, who had both experienced serious hearing loss, their blessing for getting dogs after they graduated. But the general
message was clear: canes were about independence, confidence, assertiveness, and full social integration, while dogs were not.

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Of course, this is merely Dr. Cudlick's interpretation of NFB philosophy. But if students other than Dr. Cudlick are leaving the centers with the impression that guide dogs serve the "less competent" blind, the centers should take affirmative steps 
to remedy the situation. I'm not implying that this information is deliberately conveyed by the staff--I believe there are guide-dog users on staff at CCB, aren't there? But if this attitude is somehow being transmitted, it does no one any good to 
pretend that there is not a problem. 

I don't raise these points to re-ignite the old "NFB is anti-dog" controversy. I do believe these are important considerations, and I hope they can be discussed at the NAGDU meeting.

Thanks to you and the board for your work in this area.

Best,

Angie