[nagdu] navigating without your cane

[Cindy Ray]

Well, TSE has you use the cane to help you orient yourself to the building for the time until you receive the dog. Then until the dog is in harness, you heel the dog throughout the building. I think this is a good thing because you have come to feel fairly confident about the building by the time you get your dog and you can truly heel it rather than inadvertently reverting to having it lead you where it thinks you want to go even if it is on leash. The first dog I got there was just from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon when the dogs were issued. This  would not have hampered or improved my transition to the dog one way or the other. Now I've been there enough that I would be confident either way, and once I did a Juno walk right before a meal so had to return without the cane. It wasn't a problem. No cane after we got the dogs though.
Cindy