[nagdu] navigating without your cane

Sat Oct 8 21:05:42 UTC 2011

Way back in the day, when I first attended Leader, you basically forfeited
your cane when you came in the dorms.  Now, this is not the case.  

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Sherry Gomes
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 3:53 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane

The first few times I went to GDB, the students were told to put away their
canes, but it isn't like that anymore.  Students are encouraged to use their
canes around the building before they get their dogs, and then when they
move around the building without their dogs.  They are also encouraged to
continue to use them, and to use a cane and heel their dogs after they get
home, in situations where they might want to use clicker to teach their dogs
to find something or as in the case of needing to find a specific driveway
or door or something.  I admit, before I started having in home training, I
would fold up my cane when I arrived at GDB and there it stayed in a drawer
till I packed up to go home.  I know the dorm as well as I know my own
apartment.  For now, anyway.  I'm left handed and literally can barely hold
my cane in my right hand, let alone wield it safely that way, so I never use
it when working my dog.  But I know many many GDB grads who do.  I think
most of the schools have come a long way in that regard.

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Margo and Arrow
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 2:33 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane

Jenine, I can't speak to prior to 1981 but in 1981 we had to use canes.  If 
you didn't have a dog in hand, it was requested in our class anyway to go 
get the cane and use it.

seeing Eye emphasizes the keeping up of cane skills even after you get your 
dog.

I personally think that using the cane at a school if you aren't working 
with your dog is a good thing because it emphasizes using the cane as well.

I have used my cane all four times I've been at the eye if I didn't have a 
dog.  I did not find switching from cane to dog that difficult.  Yes, my 
instructor did mention some things I was doing that were carryovers from 
cane usage and that they weren't necessary with a dog.

Margo and Arrow
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jenine Stanley" <jeninems at wowway.com>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane

> Cindy and other TSE grads,
>
>
> Has TSE always had that policy of allowing you to use your cane prior to
> receiving the dog? Just curious as I'd thought they used to force people 
> to
> put away their canes and learn the building sans cane before getting a 
> dog.
>
> I don't think there's a right or wrong to either way of doing things,
> allowing or not allowing canes. It's not so much breaking an emotional
> attachment as breaking a kinesthetic one, muscle memory and all that. For 
> me
> with my very first dog, the switch from leading or getting input from the
> right side of my body, my cane hand, arm and shoulder, to the left side, a
> very hard pulling dog, was tough. The time without a cane to equalize that
> input did help some.
>
> Jenine Stanley
> jeninems at wowway.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Cindy Ray
> Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 2:58 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane
>
> 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
>
>
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