[nagdu] Introduction and Questions

[Julie J.]

Robert,

I welcome questions about owner training a guide dog.  As you probably 
know I'm on my third owner trained guide.  I'm quite open about what 
I've done.  I have absolutely nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed 
of. I've been around a lot of program trained guides and a few owner 
trained ones, Monty is pretty much like all of your dogs.  He's 
generally well behaved, but he's not perfect, just like a program 
trained dog.

You said that there should be some sort of process a person should have 
to go through to self train a dog.   First lets talk about the 
terminology.  Everyone that I know that trains their own guide/service 
dog calls it owner training since it is the owner doing the training.  
Self trained guide would suggest that it is the dog training itself.   
Dogs are smarter than we give them credit sometimes, but no dog is quite 
at this level.

There is a process a person has to go through to have an owner trained 
guide dog.  It is called training and there is a lot of it.  Marti on 
this list spent the shortest amount of time training any guide that I 
have heard of at four months.  I think I win the prize for longest at 15 
months.  That's training the dog every. single. day. come rain, hail, 
high winds, blistering heat or a blizzard.  You don't get a day off, ever.

You also said that program users feel slighted or slapped too.  I would 
answer that your feelings are your own and no one can make you feel 
anything.  It is up to the individual to choose how they are going to 
react to any given situation.  I'm not really sure why you feel slighted 
by the existence of owner trained guide and service dogs.

You went on to say that no one is ever going to say anything about it, 
but a guy like you will.  Actually that's not true.  We've talked about 
owner training on this list off and on for many, many years.  I've been 
open and honest from day 1.  Some people think owner training is a 
viable option and some people don't.  That's fine we are a diverse group 
of people with differing opinions.  As long as people remain respectful, 
I'm okay.

You suggest that hand gestures and  other undetermined training methods 
are talked about on this list that require vision.   Ummm, the trainer 
using hand gestures doesn't require vision.  I use them and I know for 
absolutely certain that many of the guide dog schools teach their 
handlers to use hand gestures to direct their dogs.  I'm not really sure 
what other training you are talking about that requires vision to do.  I 
try to explain things in non visual terms because that's the way I do 
things generally.  My vision is something like count fingers at 12 
inches so there are a handful of things I still do visually.   I do 
still use words like see when referring to things like, "did you see 
that movie?"  or "I saw you were in the newspaper the other day".  No, I 
don't actually see those things, but that way of speaking/writing is the 
norm.  I would also like to point out that just because the majority of 
this list is made up of blind people, there is absolutely no rule that 
limits discussion of visual topics.

You asked how an owner trained guide gets on a plane, cruise ship or 
other similar place.  I've flown with my previous guide, Belle.  She was 
wearing her harness.  I was asked if she was a guide dog, I answered yes 
and we got on the plane.  It was not a problem.  It is also very much 
within the law of the Air Carrier Access Act.  I have not been on a 
ship, but the ADA would apply.  An owner trained guide could get on the 
ship the same as any other guide/service dog.  The rules for getting off 
the ship with the guide vary a lot from country to country so you'd have 
to check that out before you went.   I'm not sure where you got the idea 
that a letter of certification is required for these things, but it 
simply isn't so.

You asked how an owner trained dog gets legal protection, perhaps by the 
person's word.  First the dog has no legal protections.  It is not the 
dog that has civil rights.  It is the disabled person that has the right 
to be accompanied by the dog who has been trained to mitigate that 
individual's disability.   Under the ADA a place of business can ask:   
if the person has a disability and if the dog is a service dog.  That's 
it, no matter who trained the dog.  The business also has the right to 
ask the person to remove the dog if it is unruly, makes messes, barks 
repeatedly or is otherwise inappropriately behaved.

You said that you've been asking questions like this for a long time and 
have not gotten answers.  I guess you haven't asked your questions on 
this list.  We've had many discussions about all of these topics.  Many 
list members frequently post updates to laws and answer questions about 
what those laws mean.  We have several other owner trainers on this list 
that will talk freely about their experiences.

In regard to other animals, snakes, mice, or a pig.  The answer is that 
under the ADA only dogs are recognized as service animals with the 
miniature horse getting mentioned.   Other laws have other 
requirements.   This changed fairly recently, two years ago maybe?

I don't care if you are rough around the edges and I don't care if you 
have strong opinions.  I do, however, absolutely insist that you are 
respectful to all the list members here, including those that you feel 
have "high vision" and those of us who train our own guides.

Julie