[nagdu] Guide dog starter age

Tracy Carcione carcione at access.net
Mon Feb 1 19:55:14 UTC 2010


Dave Loux, recently retired from TSE, got his first dog when he was 14. 
I've heard it was because of an unusually demanding route to school.  That
would have been in the 1970's, I guess.
I hear that schools occasionally make an exception to the 16-year-old
rule, but there have to be unusual circumstances, and they don't advertise
it.
Tracy


> I've heard of dogs being given to young kids like that, but usually
> it's with kids that have other disabilities such as autism. Haven't
> heard of a blind kid getting a guide dog, except in one case where the
> kid ended up leading the dog around school, and the district sent them
> back to be retrained after the first year. Turned out the teen didn't
> need a dog to get around his school. I'm not sure how that ended up,
> but it does illustrate that guide dog schools say 16 fora  reason.
>
> Wayne
>






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