[nagdu] anticipating

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

AnnaLisa,

Yeah, the mind reading is pretty cool, too.  How *did* she know?

I am a coffee person, so no matter where I go, even a totally strange mall,
Mitzi will always know the location of the Starbucks.  And the restroom.
/lol/  Clearly, she knows what's important!

When I go through a new big store or mall or something like that just to
practice my orientation and both of our guiding skills, if I manage to get
myself completely turned around and start muttering, "Where are we, I
wonder?" She will give a little tug on the harness to let me know she's
ready to take the wheel.  I'm afraid I sometimes let her do that just to see
what she will do.

She will take me to: a) the coffee shop or b) the restroom or c) the door to
outside.  She will always show me the dog aisle along the way.  /lol/  Funny
pup.  Usually, she will have shown me these things with the little head and
body turn and slight pause, so I can then orient to them once I get myself
turned around.  Or even if I don't but just want to practice.

She can always find DD, too, and finds it a fun reward after we've done our
random solos while he shops.

I discovered recently that she knows the meaning of "wrangle a human" and
will in fact do so.  She will also point out a cash register or customer
service desk.  Last night after dinner, Mitzi and I led the way out of the
restaurant, because I still want to practice and reinforce doing that
without checking out anybody's dinner or stopping to make new best friends
to all the people who make goo goo eyes at her and...  I've lost a big
enough whack of vision lately that I need to her to be more on target.
Also, I'm now less likely to get caught up in the same distractions, since I
can no longer really see them.  Whew!  I swear, I'm worse than she is that
way sometimes.  /smile/

Anyway, there we went, like we know what we're doing, around the dorner to
the door...  We go to that restaurant down the stree often enough that I
pretty much knew where we were and was confused by her sudden stop and turn
away from the door.  Huh?  Was I lost? What was going on? A woman laughed
indulgently somewhere, echoed by DD's chuckle.  Very baffling.

So I asked DD if the door wasn't on my left and he told me it was, so I
repeated find the door and out we went, while he stayed behind to pay the
bill...  Standing in the exact spot she had taken me to so that I could stop
and pay before leaving the restaurant.  She is a strange and funny dog.

What I want to know is how she can distinguish a store employee from a
customer when it's time for us to wrangle a human?  It's happened a couple
of times now, and she actually seems to be catching their eye to draw them
over to give some assistance.  Well, twice is a coincidence.  If she does it
a few more times, I'm going to really start to wonder...

Anyway, it never hurts to know where Starbucks is because you always know
where you are then, whether you drink coffee or not.  /grin/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of AnnaLisa Anderson
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 6:02 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] anticipating

Hi Julie and all,

I think based on what everyone has said so far, anticipating from our dogs
is a skill we all very much appreciate.  Sunny is very good about
remembering places we go often and slightly turning as if to inquire if
that's the way I want to go, but if I tell her no, not now and good girl,
she will move on.  My previous dog Megan could be very stubborn about that,
especially if it was when we went a certain way almost all the time, then I
decided to change the routine and go a different way this once.  She would
plant her feet and refuse to move without some very firm coaching.  So we
got into some rather serious "debates" as Margo put it, on a few occasions.
<smile>

When Sunny was in training, there was a Starbucks that the trainers would go
to all the time.  So when I got home, Sunny always wanted to stop at any
coffee shop we passed.  It took her a while to realize I'm not a coffee
person at all, so we rarely go in a coffee shop unless I'm going to get hot
chocolate or something.  But what's really funny is how they can seemingly
read your mind at times.  Sometimes I just think about stopping somewhere,
where we usually don't stop, and Sunny will turn her head that way as if she
somehow knows I was thinking about maybe stopping there, even though I said
nothing aloud to her.

AnnaLisa and Sundance



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