[nagdu] PBS program link

[Julie J]

Here's the link to the PBS program

http://video.pbs.org/video/1475527358

When I went to that link the video started playing automatically.   No clue if that's just my settings or if it will do that for everyone.

My thoughts on the program...
I'm with Tracy, that bit at the beginning about how the dogs give the person their life and happiness was disturbing.  I also noticed that they used, "confined to a wheelchair" which is generally not accepted among disability groups.  I was also very, very not impressed by a statement toward the end of the program about the people not being normal, then they get the dogs and can have a life and a job.

this particular service dog program seems to place a lot of dogs with young children.  The video mentions 5 kids and only one adult.  It was interesting to see how much the parents and other family members were involved in the process.

I liked the trainer, Chris.  He uses positive training methods, mainly luring.  It was really cool to see how he could use eye movement to cue the dog, very useful for nonverbal people.

The program focuses a lot on the emotional aspects of service dogs.  Probably 95% of what they talked about were bonding and partnership aspects and very little in actual tasks.

The matching process was very, very different from what is typical in guide dog programs.  It seemed to me that they let all the dogs and people mingle in one big room.  The dogs and people picked each other.  I'm not sure how big the class was, but there were two dog switches, one during class and another a few weeks after returning home.  I like the concept of choosing your own dog, to a point. I don't know that a free for all matching process is the best way to go though.

JMO
Julie