[nagdu] navigating without your cane

[Lyn Gwizdak]

Hi Jenine,
When I was at TSE in October 2007, wwe used our canes in the buildiong 
before getting the dogs.  Also, wew used the canes during our sidewalkless 
travel - country work.  They had us use the cane to check that we were 
following the shoreline while wwe walked to the left hand side of the 
street - into traffic.  We did this to make sure the dogs weren't drifting 
to the right - and into the middle of the road.

I don't know if this is still the case.  It seems that after many years and 
I return, something is changed in the training - and that's a good thing if 
it improves things.

Lyn and Landon
----- 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 12:57 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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