[nagdu] Freedom for guide dogs

Tamara Smith-Kinney tamara.8024 at comcast.net
Sat Nov 27 16:20:50 UTC 2010


Bells are a lifesaver!  /grin/  Only Mitzi tends to lose her bells, then I'm
always lost because I don't know where my dog is.  Well, when she's not in
harness anyway.  Apparently, I've become so used to hearing her bells when
she moves around the house or on loose leash walks or at run play, that I
orient to them and use them somehow for echo location.  She learned young
how to get into things without rattling her tags or ringing her bells,
though.  I could not believe it!

Mitzi is a standard poodle.  I got her at 7 months as a blank slate puppy,
then trained her myself.  So read a lot about what puppy raisers do and
asked questions of anyone who might have seen one hair of a puppy raiser's
head to help me figure out how to go about socializing Mitzi and building in
the foundation of good etiquette.  Starting at that age with such an
incredibly high-energy pup made life very, very interesting.  Also
exhausting.  /grin/

I like the approach of setting the dog up to be bad when you're really
watching, so that you can deal with sneaky behaviors they do the minute your
back is turned.  I think it's part of the growing-up process in puppies, but
it will drive you mad, won't it?  /grin/  As they grow up, you need to give
them more freedom to teach them how to handle it, but they also get cleverer
at getting themselves into trouble as their brains develop...  Kinda like
human children, really, except that the phases are much shorter and you
don't have to send them out into the world alone or give them the car keys.
/smile/

When we moved in with DD, who could see her silently checking out the table
or counter, he could snap at her.  It came as quite a shock to her system to
get busted like that, but then she thought it was funny, so she started
testing him to see what she could get away with.  He'd bark at her, and she
would just grin and give him the tail wag with the head flip, unrepentant as
could be.  She's like that, the silly girl.  Drove him crazy at first,
because he actually expected her to look guilty and hurt at the very least.
She got him charmed pretty quickly, though, so he couldn't help being amused
by the game.

Have you applied for a dog yet?  It sounds like you're planning to become a
handler.  It should be interesting for you as a puppy raiser to get to work
with a finished dog.  One of the really great rewards of owner-training is
that you get to see the progress all the way through until you suddenly
realize that your big mess of trouble is a good, well-mannered guide dog
that is very nice to live with.  /smile/  I don't know why it still
surprises me sometimes, since we both worked really hard to get here.

Thanks for the stories about your bear!

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Danielle Larsen
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 6:00 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Freedom for guide dogs

well said Tammi!
i'm a puppy raiser for TSE, not yet a guide dog handler, but I am visually
impaired, so I do understand the difficulty of  correcting quickly. What
type of dog do you haev?

I find that dogs having some freedom is good for them, and having them on
leash all the tiem will be stressful for you both. Sometims when I know the
puppy has a problemw ith certain thigns, I will go out of my way to "set up"
these situations. Our puppy (I'll call her bear for the sake of keeping the
raiser/handler confidentiality)  countersurfs in the worst way!!
So what we've done is set food on the counter and pretned that we are no
longer paying attention. she thinks she is being sneaky and when we catch
her hop right up we correct her very sternly. It has taken work but improved
significantly.

It's hard to let them be free when you feel sure they will ge tinto things.
But I've found letting them get into it and correecting it right away is ,
although difficult, quite successful. Do you ever put bellson your dog. that
is a really great way to hear what they are doing. Our puppy is always
belled.

Hope this info is even sort of productive!
-Danielle

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Tamara Smith-Kinney <
tamara.8024 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Dan and Lora,
>
> Sometimes it's the orthodoxy that is ill-advised.  /evil grin/  I'm a big
> proponent of freedom to run play in wide open spaces.  Apparently, most if
> not all U.S. guide dog programs are against that sort of thing.  At least
> they used to be; I hear they're getting less uptight about it lately.
>
> The key is to find a place where your dog will be as safe as possible to
> run
> and play and even socialize with other dogs.  Especially at first, because
> reliable recall and boundaries take time to learn.  Also, it seems that
> reliability is a matter of maturity, so you need to maintain protections
> for
> a wild and crazy dog until at least the age of 5.  /smile/  Well, the
level
> of total reliability I'm referring to there means that the dog is
> self-disciplined and obedient enough to walk with its owner off-leash
> around
> a city neighborhood without getting into trouble or endangering itself or
> others.  Used to be, Portlanders would take their well-trained,
> well-mannered dogs all over the place that way -- farmer's markets, street
> fairs, community picnics, you name it.  Then people started taking their
> untrained, ill-mannered scurvy curs to those venues, so now those of us
who
> have taken the time to train our dogs have to keep them on leash even
> though
> the law still says on leash or under control.  Oh, well!  Mine is just now
> mature and reliable enough for me to consider wandering around a farmer's
> market or such with her off leash, and I would be using her as a guide
> anyway. Still!  I would have loved an opportunity to see all that patience
> and perserverance come into play, just a time or two.  I'm silly that way,
> I
> guess.
>
> So the 5-year maturity limit is only if you really want to have a dog that
> is totally reliable off-leash in unfenced areas.  I do, so I've been
> working
> with Mitzi poodle on that since January of '07...  While I still limit
> potential risks when we're doing our thing with no physical connection
> between us, she's pretty awesome and I don't worry much these days.  Also,
> she truly does jingle guide and squeak guide with her ball, so it's great
> for just walking around in the great outdoors with her.  /smile/
>
> I put bells on her collar so I know where she is, and I always reinforce
> recall and minding boundaries.  Which I can now set on the fly, so that's
> cool.  I have no need to take her on a sidewalk near traffic, and would
not
> choose to do so.  However, it is nice to know that if for whatever strange
> reason I have a need for her to be off-leash, she would be fine.  I did
> actually manage to lose my leash at the park a couple of years back and
was
> astonished at how well she did coming home without it.  It was a pretty
> safe
> walk, except for a couple of passages, but she was awfully darn good,
> especially considering her age and general level of overall snottiness.
> Love her, but she is Mitzi poodle, after all.  /grin/
>
> Incorporating interactive play into your off-leash time also does wonders.
> You can do a lot of reinforcing your training without actually doing any
> training.  And you can both get lots of exercise while having fun
together.
> You can praise a behavior your dog makes in the course of play ("Good
bring
> it!), then reward the dog by throwing (or kicking) the ball,which is the
> reward.  It's a fun way to have a dog that listens and responds well
during
> off leash romps.
>
> With my ulta high-energy wild and crazy curly girl, I have done my best to
> follow a couple of hard and fast rules for myself:
>
>        1.  Always reward recall.  Always!
>        2.  Never give a command you know your dog will not obey.
>
> Oh, and when it comes to teaching your dog to pay attention to you when it
> counts...  Smelly treats!  If they're much too expensive and you can't
> stand
> yourself when you have a pocket full of them, then you're probably on the
> right track.  /lol/  Early on, especially, using rank bribery to start
> conditioning obedience is definitely the way to go.  Dogs are
> scent-oriented, so a smelly treat will get the dog's attention and bring
it
> to you, even when said dog was planning to run by you demonstrating that
it
> has no intention of coming to you just because you called it.  I speak
from
> experience there.  /grin/  It's a way to condition the dog to come whether
> it wants to be conditioned or not.  /lol/  I could still see Mitzi well
> enough on sunny days to catch her expression when that start kicking in.
> She was so mad!  But she couldn't help herself because, well, you know...
> Smelly treats are smelly treats.  Yum!
>
> Don't know if any of that is helpful in your situation.  It was fun to
> suddenly find myself thinking back through all the fun (and sometimes
> scary)
> times with my curly girl, seeing those sunny days in the park by my old
> apartment with far more clarity than I probably really did....
>
> Now, I need to remember how to walk around the house I live in on this
dank
> and dreary winter's night... /lol/
>
> Good luck, and let us know how it goes.
>
> Tami Smith-Kinney
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
>  Of Dan Weiner
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 10:39 AM
> To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] Freedom for guide dogs
>
> Well, just my opinion.
> First of all, with outside do you mean a fenced-in area or an open space
> with no borders?
> If it's fenced-in, then really no harm done and let him run around and get
> rid of pent up energy.
> If it's totally open, I would say that letting her off lead is
ill-advised.
> Perhaps you could buy a flexi-lead to give your dog more space to roam
> without getting away.
> I have a fifteen foot nylon leash I bought about 15 years ago, one foot
per
> year--lol.
> The problem is that your dog can get tangled up in it.
> So, fenced-in area, all right, open area, not so hot--smile.
> Indoors, well, and this is just a general comment, I find that people are
> really uptight about everything their dogs do. How can your dog learn
> what's
> expected without freedom in the house. Besides, keeping him/her on leash
if
> it's your home will make you a nervous wreck and start feeling like a
> burden.
> Even the best guide dogs I've seen will eventually do something silly in
> the
> house, so don't sweat the little stuff.
>
> Perhaps unorthodox but my two cent worth anyway.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Cindy Ray
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 1:33 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] Freedom for guide dogs
>
> Um, I wouldn't let him outside off leash myself. As for inside, are you
> doing obedience? Often the dogs really need that for a while before you
can
> get what you are looking for. I do obedience on leash sometimes; then as a
> final exercise I do it off leash to see if he'll do it.
>
> CL
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lora" <blindhistory at gmail.com>
> To: <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 12:27 PM
> Subject: [nagdu] Freedom for guide dogs
>
>
> After about six months I have been trying to give my guide dog freedom
> outside and inside. He still gets into trouble mostly outside. He
> won't listen off leash. Any suggestions?
> --
> Lora
>
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