[nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog

Tue Apr 6 19:46:47 UTC 2010

Michale,

Gotta love those baby boomers.  /smile/  They're still changing our culture
and public policy and medical practices and...  And they will be for years
to come!  /smile/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Michael Hingson
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 12:19 AM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog

Actually, for many years the belief was that good TRAVEL skills were
necessary to get a guide dog as far as the schools were concerned.  This is
still the case for the most part.

However, with an aging population guide dog schools have come to understand
that each person's use of a guide should be examined on its own merit.  Some
people will not use a guide to go further than down the street to the house
of a friend or to the local store.  Some guide dog schools have realized
that the needs of the elderly who may not travel as much are just as
important as those of younger persons.

For the most part schools still wish to see good travel and orientation
skills.  This does usually go along with good cane skills since the hard
part is not using the cane but rather having the confidence to use it to go
anywhere.

Mike Hingson

The Michael Hingson Group, INC.
     “Speaking with Vision”
                 Michael Hingson, President
                         (415) 827-4084
                   info at michaelhingson.com
                   www.michaelhingson.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of David Andrews
Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 8:47 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog

Tracy:

As I understand it -- most of the Dog Guide schools say that people 
need good cane skills in order to be accepted.  It sounds like this 
isn't necessarily true, which I have always suspected.

Dave

At 01:32 PM 4/2/2010, you wrote:
>Marion, I don't necessarily agree that good cane skills should be a
>prerequisite for getting a guide dog.  It's a nice theory.  It would
>certainly be helpful.  But I know too many people who don't have
>spectacular cane skills, but do great with a dog.  Some of them are older
>people, who started getting dogs when cane training was not very
>available.  Some of them are from places where services for blind people
>are not very good.  Some of them went blind as senior citizens, and quite
>a few agencies don't serve that population very well, since they won't be
>employed.  Should we tell these people they have to wait until they can
>somehow get cane training?  I don't think so. I've met enough people for
>whom the dog was the thing that got them back out, living their lives, and
>I think getting out and living one's life is a great thing. I'm not
>willing to stand in someone's way over whether or not their cane skills
>measure up to some philosophical mark.
>
>Should we take good orientation as good enough?  Or should the guide dog
>schools offer cane training to prospective applicants who they feel should
>have it? They seem like reasonable approaches to me, and I believe they
>are
>the ones being carried out. Encouraging good cane skills is fine, but I
>wouldn't make it a prerequisite for a guide dog.
>Tracy

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