[nagdu] commands

[Lyn Gwizdak]

I was in a store once and I said "Good Boy" to my dog.  A black man was 
nearby and he said in a wounded kind of voice, "I'm not a boy."  I said to 
him that I thought he sounded a bit old to be a boy.  WE had a chuckle over 
that.  Glad it worked out that way - some black person could have thought I 
was being racist and calling him a boy in the manner the racists used to 
refer to black men that way. Who knows what he was thinking when he thought 
I was calling him a boy to be racist.  Maybe my response told him that I 
wasn't racist at all.  I would have said the same thiong to a white guy.

How funny that people think we are talking to them when I thought it was 
quite clear that we are talking to the dog - who talks that way to strange 
people on the street anyway! LOL!

Lyn and Landon
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marsha Drenth" <marsha.drenth at gmail.com>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2011 7:58 AM
Subject: [nagdu] commands


> Hi List,
>
>
>
> There was something mentioned on another list that sparked a very
> interesting subject for me. Here is a situation for example. I am at 
> school,
> or out in the city or just traveling. Emma is sniffing something, and I 
> tell
> her to leave it, not in a loud voice but in a firm voice. I try to tell 
> her
> in a voice that she can only hear and that will not draw attention to me.
> But to my surprise there is someone around. And they think I am speaking 
> to
> them, to leave me and my dog alone. I am not speaking to them, but they
> become offended. Then I have to apologize.
>
>
>
> Does anyone else have this happen? Or am I the only one?
>
>
>
> Emma comes from the Seeing Eye, I use commands like: Leave it, Hop up,
> Fouie, Right, left, inside and outside are just some of the commands I 
> use.
>
>
>
> If the above situation happens to you? How do you handle this? And if it
> does not how do you give your pup commands?
>
>
>
> I think the next dog I receive I will be teaching and then using commands 
> in
> another language. My reasons for this, that if I tell my dog a command, I
> also do not want others to know what I am telling her to do. As some of 
> the
> sighted people around me have said, "No, no don't correct your dog, she is
> being good." Or "no, no you need to go here or there, you should go to the
> elevator."
>
>
>
> Interesting topic for discussion,
>
> Marsha
>
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