[nagdu] overhead obstacles

Sat Jun 16 20:29:56 UTC 2012

I am 6 feet 5 and I get a lot of obstacles . I have had several dogs of
which one was very good. He would stop if there was no way around it and if
there was a way around it he would take it without even stopping (he was
amazing), one never got it and the others sort of get it. Now, whenever I go
to a school, I state that I need a dog who understand overheads very well
since this is one of the reasons why I go with a dog.

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Julie J.
Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 1:14 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] overhead obstacles

> Tracy,

I think ducking under makes more sense for me and Monty.  My preference 
is for him to go around like any other obstacle, but that's not working. 
  He's recognizing them and stopping, but he has a lot of difficulty 
judging a good place to stop or I'm dense and not understanding or 
something.

He's showing signs of being uncertain of what to do when we come to 
overhead obstacles.  I think it's a combination of him being very 
careful, which leads to stopping too soon and me not understanding. I 
don't want to continue down this road where I'm frustrating or confusing 
him leading to bigger problems.

Julie

> Ben is pretty bad at overhead obstacles.  I've only had one dog who was
> really good at them.
> My preference is to have the dog go up close to the overhang, then to duck
> under, if possible, or go around if it's too low.  If he stops too far
> away, I hup him up a bit.  But often he bashes me with the branch, and we
> have to re-work it.  Then he gets it.  If it's a route we take regularly,
> he'll probably remember next time, and stop or go around.
> I think my Amba would look at shadows on the ground near where we'd
> encountered overhangs, and go around the shadows, instead of looking up to
> try and judge if it would hit me or not. I think high overhangs are quite
> a challenge for dogs, because they don't usually look up high.  I'm 5.6,
> so I get whacked by branches pretty often in the summer, especially when
> it's rained and they're hanging low.  Yuk!
> Tracy
>
>> Monty and I have been struggling for a while now with overhead
>> obstacles.   I need to figure out a game plan and get on it.  He's
>> stopping too far out so I don't always understand that he's stopping for
>> a tree branch or whatever.  I'll tell him to go forward or around or
>> whatever and his responses vary.  Sometimes he'll refuse, sometimes
>> he'll go and I run into the branch and sometimes he'll do some really
>> amazing intricate guide work to weave me through the mess.
>>
>> I've been trying to get him to work up closer to the obstacle so I can
>> reach it and know what's going on, but it's not been exceptionally
>> successful.  So I'm open to ideas, suggestions or anything anyone has to
>> offer.
>> How exactly do you guys work overhead obstacles?  Do you go off the
>> sidewalk and around? Or duck down and go under? Or backtrack and go a
>> different way? Does your guide stop for an overhead or does the dog
>> automatically lead you around it?
>>
>> He's not ignoring the overheads.  We are just having difficulty in
>> understanding each other, which leads to me giving confusing directions.
>>    I want to get this worked out before I really mess up his previous
>> training and he stops indicating them all together.
>>
>> For the new folks, I have owner trained Monty so I have no trainer or
>> school to call.  Monty is exceptionally safety conscious and works most
>> obstacles from a distance, which is fine when he takes me around without
>> my additional direction.  I also will be using clicker training to fix
>> this snag since I feel it is probably my issue and a miscommunication
>> rather than blatant goofing off on his part.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>> Julie
>>
>>
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>
>
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