[nagdu] Dirty Busses

Sat Nov 6 02:36:05 UTC 2010

In Winnipeg, we are fortunate to have reasonably clean buses but still, 
there are indeed occasions.

My Dog Payton (Miss Payton to you) is a little 57 (give or take) yellow 
devil with a 100 pound attitude, a perfect match.  Before I take a seat, I 
try to swish my tiny size twelves under the seat to do a little clearance 
which even if it doesn't work, makes me feel better. then I slide her under 
the seat with her head between my feet and if I'm forced to ride sideways (I 
hate that) her back end can go where it pleases.  Otherwise, I adjust the 
amount of backwards push accordingly.  In addition, I keep a little tension 
on the leash as a little extra control.  In addition to anything which can 
loosely be defined as food, Payton likes other delights such as Kleenex, 
used or not.  She it pretty good at contracting all appendages to where they 
are behind my toes.  I got her to do this by tapping her components 
sufficiently firmly to cause discomfort with of course, my feet.  Nothing 
like adding a little sole to achieve results.  Hey, it's a whole lot better 
than having a passenger grinding down with full weight, especially when we 
have been standing out in minus 35 or more, not counting winedchill for 
perhaps 20 minutes.

Doug
Question: "how long have you been blind?"
Answer: "what time it it now?

Please update your address book: the signature below contains a new phone 
number

Doug Parisian
4-951 Westminster
Winnipeg, MB R3G1B7
Cell Phone only: 204 299 3912
Email: eggmann at mts.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tamara Smith-Kinney" <tamara.8024 at comcast.net>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 20:40
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Dirty Busses

> Lyn,
>
> That's pretty much what I do with Mitzi, too.  Or I will have her sit
> between my feet without scooching her back, if there's space and the floor
> under the seat seems iffy to me.  Just depends.  ,My focus in positioning
> Mitzi on the bus is primarily her safety, then her general comfort within
> the safety zone, then not having her stick to the floor and leave patches 
> of
> glossy black curls when it's time to get off the bus.  /lol/  She's pretty
> good about communicating with me on the subject of safety vs. comfort, so
> that helps.  Keeping her safe means keeping her out of the way of other
> people's feet, bags, wheelchairs, walkers, whatever, so the spirit of 
> proper
> etiquette is served.  Whew!  It took me a ridiculously long time to align 
> my
> way of thinking to that balance, since I was so busy trying to solve the
> problem of getting my poodle to curl up in a neat ball under my seat the 
> way
> everyone knows guide dogs are supposed to do.  /lol/  The only solution to
> getting her into the correct physical arrangement, especially in the space
> allotted, involved corrective surgery to have an extra joint installed in
> those wonderfully long legs of hers so that they could fold correctly.  I
> would also need to have some extra hooks and stays to keep her curled up 
> in
> a ball without popping out here and there like a horizontal 
> jack-in-the-box.
> /grin/
>
> Anyway, once she figured out that stayiing out of the way was a good way 
> not
> to get stepped on, etc., we were home free!  She has become very good a
> finding a place relative to me where she can be safely out of the way, 
> still
> watch what is going on, and just generally let me get on with my business
> without fuss.  And isn't that the point, really?
>
> I love the way you describe your work with guide dogs over the course of
> your life as a partial.  I find that even my real life work with a cane
> tends to be very adaptive to my needs of the time and lighting conditions,
> as opposed to following the strict rules of cane use...  So with Mitzi.
> Actually, she's more able to adapt to my losses of vision or even changes 
> in
> lighting than I am able to independently adjust my cane use to fit my
> situation.  Cool dog!  I still get a little too uptight when we're going
> through alternating light and shadow sometimes, which annoys her.  If I
> remember to flip my little mental switch for those conditions and just let
> her do her job without get all nervous wondering if she's doing her job, 
> it
> all goes smooth as silk.  If I'm being stupid, she has to go to a lot of
> extra effort to save me from myself.  Sucks being her!  /grin/
>
> Tami Smith-Kinney
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Lyn Gwizdak
> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 9:15 AM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] Dirty Busses
>
> Hey Elizabeth,
> Ahhhh, the ahem - joys of bus riding! LOL!!  I have to say this was quite
> the experience of riding Boston transit where they don't care if you eat 
> and
>
> drink on the bus.  Here in San Diego, our transit company does not allow
> eating and drinking on the buses or trolleys.  People are pretty good at
> following this rule as it has been in effect for many, many years.  But, 
> you
>
> do get the few who think the rules are for someone else and not them.
>
> When I ride the bus and sit in the aisle facing seats, I scoot Landon's 
> butt
>
> under the seat with his head between my feet.  that way, he can't snarf
> anything under the seat.
>
> What is a "pencil skirt"?  Is it a miniskirt the girls wore in the 1960s?
> Most women I know who like skirts don't wear that kind - they wear a 
> longer,
>
> loose type of skirt or the just wear pants when they have to ride public
> transit.
>
> Lyn and Landon
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Elizabeth Rene" <emrene at earthlink.net>
> To: <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 12:22 PM
> Subject: [nagdu] Dirty Busses
>
>
>> Has anyone encountered this situation?:
>>
>> You board the bus and sit on the isle-facing, pull-down bench designated
>> for passengers with wheelchairs, guide dogs, strollers, etc.  Your guide
>> dog kennels under the bench per your direction, keeping his paws and tail
>> out of the path of passengers' feet.
>>
>> Then you hear him chomping away at some trashy goody tossed there by the
>> last passenger.  Or he dives under the seat, rump to the world, with his
>> nose wildly sniffing unknown substances under the bench, with his collar
>> and leash at an angle   no leash correction can counteract without drama.
>> Or your nicely groomed dog emerges from the bus with something gross 
>> stuck
>
>> to his haunch.  Or someone at work asks you if your dog has cut himself,
>> and you discover a wad of stickiness the shape of a slash along his leg
>> that cleans off with no underlying wound.  Or your dog's jaws are working
>> eagerly when you check on him under that bus bench and you correct him,
>> reach in, and pull out something ghastly.  Or you rise from that bus 
>> bench
>
>> to disembark only to realize that the back thigh of one   of your pant
>> legs where you've sat has become, er, moist!
>>
>> All of this has happened to Alvin and me during the past few months, on a
>> busline that originates in my very nice neighborhood, then goes across
>> town and back.
>>
>> Never before in Seattle or in other cities have I encountered such dirty
>> busses.  Never have I had to worry about my dog getting into trouble, or
>> my being grossed out, because passengers threw their garbage under the
>> seats or the busses weren't cleaned .
>>
>> I keep Alvin under the bus seat because Seattle's  electrified busses
>> lurch all the time, go up and down steep hills, and are hazardous for a
>> sitting guide not clamped firmly between his handler's knees (hard to do
>> in a pencil skirt!).  Alvin's too big to squeeze into the space between
>> the front-facing seats, or I'd have him sit there with me, next to the
>> window.
>>
>> I shudder to think about having to sweep the bus seat with my hand before
>> sitting to make sure it's dry!
>>
>> I'm about to write to Metro Transit about this situation, but don't 
>> expect
>
>> much more than sympathy, owing to budget cuts county-wide that have
>> probably caused Metro to cut corners on cleaning.
>>
>> Anyone have the same beef?
>>
>> Taxi, please,
>>
>> Elizabeth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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> et
>
>
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