[nagdu] Missing Washington Co. Boy Found After 5-MileBarefootWalk

Wed May 19 17:32:52 UTC 2010

Hi Katrin,
Thank you for sharing about your disability.  You are very welcome on a 
guide dog list.  Yeah, you may not be actually "legally blind" but your 
disability causes you to have to function as a legally blind person.

Vision comes actually from the brain - not the eyes. the eyes are the 
vehicle for the brain to "see". There was a patient at the hospital I work 
at who has functional blindness. Meanoing that, for whatever reason, the 
eyes are normal but the patient can't see - the messeges of what we call 
"sight" aren't getting out so he actually can't see. So, I've heard a bit 
about this type of thing.

I hope all goes well for you at GDF.  I had gotten my first two dogs from 
there but now I go to Seeing Eye for my dogs.

I think there's so many things a dog can do for people with blindness and 
disabilities.  It's too bad the idiots are ruining it for other people with 
their untrained, unsocialized dogs and the person's disregard for the 
responsibilities with owning and  working a service dog.

You take care - you belong here! (grin!)

Lyn and Landon
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Katrin Andberg" <katrin at maplewooddog.com>
To: <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 6:15 PM
Subject: [nagdu] Missing Washington Co. Boy Found After 5-MileBarefootWalk

> There are many tasks that service dogs can do for adults with autism that
> are real true tasks.  Many relate to disorders that tend to coexist with 
> the
> autism diagnosis.  For example I am autistic and also have a neurological
> sensory processing disorder with poor proprioception.  The sensory
> processing disorder I have because I am autistic and that is what I mainly
> utilize my dog for.  Because of this disorder I have difficulty with
> correctly processing my environment through my senses.  Personally my most 
> 2
> affected senses are my eye sight and my hearing.  I use my tactile sense a
> lot to correctly interpret what my eyes are seeing or to tell me how far
> away from something I am and things like that.  Pretty much I can never
> trust my eye sight.  I am not legally blind but I do utilize many of the
> same skill sets that people who are legally blind use.  I have been 
> through
> O&M training, which of course the state would not fund even though my drs
> recommended it, so I had to pay out of pocket and it was a HUGE help to 
> me.
> I have also learned a lot by trial and error how to get along best in my
> environment.  One of the reasons I am on guide dog user specific e-mail
> lists is because it is a simple way for me to learn new things from others
> who have problems with vision even though the reasons we have problems are
> not the same and see how they get things accomplished.  There are things I
> have read about on the list and then gone "Hey that would really be a good
> thing for me to try!" and I do it and it is a great help to me and makes
> things a lot easier.  I am a very independent person and I tend to learn
> things a bit differently because of my disability but I still get the job
> done.  I do not though have the benefit of a vision center or a state
> commission for the blind or someplace like that as those places won't 
> assist
> me.  There is a local autism society but most of their services for people
> my age are for things like social groups or employment which I don't 
> really
> need that kind of help with at this time.
>
>
>
> For what my dog does for me, he does all of the same tasks that a guide 
> dog
> for any of you do.  He does obstacle avoidance, he does intelligent
> disobedience at streets and other dangerous situations, he does stopping 
> at
> curbs and stairs and other changes in pavement.  He also has a follow cue
> which I use quite often when we are in new places.  I have also trained 
> him
> to find our home, the last car we were in if someone takes us out, how to
> find people I go places often with by name, how to find places I go often 
> by
> name and a number of other things for me.  He finds entrance and exit 
> doors,
> he finds counters, he finds empty seats, etc.  I also have a dog who helps
> me at home only (I could have trained James but my corgi really wanted a 
> job
> so it was fun to train him too) who alerts me to various timers going off
> and the smoke and CO alarm.  Again because of my sensory processing 
> disorder
> I have difficulty with actually processing what those sounds are or simply
> not tuning them out and hearing them at all, so he tells me when they are
> going off same as a hearing dog for the deaf would do.
>
>
>
> The dog I currently have, James, I owner trained.  My next dog I had been
> hoping to owner train, but due to life circumstances I am not going to be
> able to so I have recently been accepted to GDF and will be going there at
> some point in hopefully the next 2 years.  Finding a program that would
> accept me and train the tasks I need (which is mostly guide work)  was 
> very
> difficult as pretty much no service dog programs train guide skills and 
> very
> few guide dog programs will accept people who are not legally blind.  GDF
> was the only school I was able to find that was willing to accept me to 
> date
> on the east coast.  They have been great to work with and hopefully will 
> be
> a good match for me.
>
>
>
> Katrin
>
>
>
> Katrin Andberg
>
> Katrin at maplewooddog.com
>
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