[nagdu] navigating without your cane

Jenine Stanley jeninems at wowway.com
Sat Oct 8 17:42:22 UTC 2011


Julie, 

One of the reasons guide dog programs ask that you navigate without your
cane prior to receiving your dog, say during those first few days on class,
is to in part observe your skill at orientation and mobility and also get
you used to not having that cane input as you move around spaces. Most
schools have you walk with your dog at heel in the building. When you do
progress to harness work indoors, you're used to that form of input, but
initially while heeling the dog, you are in charge of movement, orientation,
etc. 

At GDF we have the dogs guide on leash from the beginning and very rarely do
we ask you to heel your dog and simply walk around. 

For some people changing the input from the cane to the dog is hard, harder
than they thought. When traveling with a dog, we do lose important sound
cues initially, replacing them with others eventually, but we also lose cues
about proximity to obstacles that we have to relearn with new inputs. 

Hope that makes sense. 

We do allow people to use their canes in the building prior to receiving
their dogs but there are times when we do ask that canes be put away. Once
the dogs are issued, unless someone really needs it, we ask that all canes
other than support canes be put away when working the dogs and when moving
around the building. 

Jenine Stanley
jeninems at wowway.com







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