[nagdu] a cane and dog discussion

[Tami Kinney]

Oh, that slick white stuff!  /lol/  We're thinking we may be moving back
to mountain country where it happens regularly at certain times of year.
I am so happy I will be using a guide dog to get through it and over it
this time if we do that.  Mitzi and I will have to figure it out
together, but the one or two times I've done snow/ice work with her, I
have been relieved to discover that she is as clever and safety
conscious in that as she is in other things.  Whew!  She's also a bit
irritable at having to put up with a nervous nellie of a handler who
ends up slipping and sliding more because of being too uptight...

I suppose I will have to relearn how to use a cane in snow and ice,
too...  All I remember of it thinking back from the present is how much
I didn't like it and how much I prefer living where I don't have to
worry about it hardly ever and why am I even *thinking* of moving back
to it...  Oh, family stuff.  We won't know for sure for another few
weeks if we'll be making that move, let alone when, but... It looks
probably for now.  So, snow travel for me.  /smile/

I will say that for that, I would dearly *love* to have an instructor! I
am not nearly young and bouncy enough to relish the thought of falling
around all over the place in the process of learning what *not* to
do.  /lol/  The bright side is that another guide dog user from this
side of the state has moved into that town just this month.  I won't be
the only one!!!! I can assume, at least, that I won't once again be the
only blind person anyone sees actually going out and about. There are a
couple of others, but they're not seen, sometimes even in their own
homes because I guess they hide from company now... Sigh. In a town --
an entire county -- where everybody literally does know everybody, or at
least what everybody is doing, the only reason I ever heard of the other
two blind people is because someone knew their close kin well enough to
be let in on the secret...  Which they would tell me in a hushed voice
after exclaiming in startlement and wonder that I was walking down the
sidewalk and clearly intending to cross the street with a white cane.
Scary, but true.  So I'm really relieved at the probable visible
presence of another blind person who also uses a guide dog.  I pretend
we won't find that this just means we get shoved down each other's
throat because we probably don't do everything exactly the same way, so
one of us must be doing it wrong. /lol/ Ah, the joys of rural life.

Tami

On Mon, 2011-06-20 at 08:06 -0600, Sheila Leigland wrote:
> I think it depends on the situations that a person deals with daily. I do much better with a dog in snow and on ice than I did with a cane. I used a cane exclusivily until almost eleven years ago when I got my first dog.my first dog. I've known cane users that have no interest in getting a dog and that is fine. I don't know people that have lost there cane skills but I've heard of it.. 
> 
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