[nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to childrenbetween the ages of 11 & 17 years old.
Sarah
coastergirl92 at gmail.com
Sun Jun 2 20:15:59 UTC 2013
What were the handler's action? How was he/she treating the dog?
Sarah and Wizard
----- Original Message -----
From: Ashley Coleman <amc05111 at gmail.com
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog
Users" <nagdu at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sun, 02 Jun 2013 14:10:55 -0400
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to
childrenbetween the ages of 11 & 17 years old.
Hi there,
I received my first guide dog at the age of 20.
In response to this topic I have to say that I have heard nothing
but
negative from this organization. There was a student who attends
the
same University as myself and people were telling me how the
handeler
was treating the dog, and at one point I was told that that was
the way
the dog was supposed to be treated, and I disagree.
The handeler eventually had the dog taken from themself.
Ashley
On 6/2/2013 12:56 PM, Rebecca Sabo wrote:
Hi all,
I got my first guide dog when I was 18. I thought I was ready
for a guide dog at that time. I retired the dog when I was at
the Colorado center for the blind in Colorado. I waited a couple
of years to get another dog. I am on my fourth dog. I do not no
of anyone who got a dog at a young age. You have to be ready to
take care of a guide dog . It is like having a child.
BeckySabo
On Jun 1, 2013, at 8:39 PM, rhonda cruz
<rhondaprincess at gmail.com> wrote:
hi i got my dog when i was 22. years old. and it worked out
good. i have never seen a younger person get a dog. from a
program. i only have older friends. that have them. but i
think it is up to the person.
it is like taking care of a kid.
On May 31, 2013, at 8:28 PM, Nicole Torcolini wrote:
First, let me say that I know someone who received a dog at a
young age (I
cannot remember the exact age) from a Canadian organization,
probably the
one mentioned in this article. I cannot remember the whole
story, but I
think that, eventually, there was some sort of problem with the
dog, but it
was the dog, and not the person. So, although I agree that the
cases where
getting a guide dog at a young age may be few, they do exist.
In general I think that it could probably be said that, as you
lower the
age, the number of cases were getting a guide dog works out well
gets lower
and lower. I agree that eleven is too low, but I also think
that sixteen is
also a little to high. I think that people should at least be
able to be
evaluated for a guide dog around thirteen or fourteen.
Sometimes, there can
be more things that need to be worked out before a person can
get a dog than
the person thought, and having a year or two to work those out
would be
nice.
I agree that having a dog around other people, especially kids,
might be
hard for a child. Most children are still in elementary school
at age
eleven, and elementary schools usually have at least first
graders if not
kindergarteners.
The whole thing about people talking about only the dog I think
is not
always a problem. JMHO, if someone wants to talk just about my
dog and
nothing else, then I don't want to talk to them. I have met
very few people
who insisted on talking about nothing but the dog, and, for most
of those
people, I have gotten it through to them that the dog is not the
main
concern at the moment and that there are other things that need
to be done.
Even for those people who start by talking about the dog, they
do not seem
to mind when I change the subject; they sometimes change it
themselves.
Would this be the same for a child? I really cannot say. I
think that
younger children may want to stick more to the topic of dogs,
but I think
that teenagers would not so much.
I definitely agree that good O&M skills are a must before
getting a guide
dog. That does not just include knowing how to use a cane but
also knowing
where you are and which direction you are pointing relative to
your
surroundings. I do see how a child might try to avoid using a
cane just
because having a dog is cooler. No, I don't necessarily like my
cane, but
that has nothing to do with the fact that the cane means that I
am blind.
I don't really know what to say about things not working out
with the
family. I think that there would need to be some kind of
information for the
family, and some way for the representatives from the guide dog
school to
talk to the child about how things are going without parents
skewing the
information. Sometimes, when I have to keep reminding people
about things
about my guide dog, I joke about sending them to the guide dog
training just
so that they can learn the rules.
I do agree that responsibility for the dog can be a problem, but
I think
that it should be considered on a case by case basis. Perhaps a
strongly
recommended prerequisite for a child getting a guide dog is that
the child
has to be able to take care of a family pet almost independently
before
getting a guide dog. When I was eleven, my family got a pet
dog, and,
although I did not do everything, I could do most of the tasks
for taking
care of her on my own. Had push come to shove, I would have
found a way to
do the other tasks. But my parents have always encouraged my
independence,
so I certainly see where it could be more of a problem of
parents wanting to
help too much. Perhaps there could be some sort of paperwork
for the parents
as well saying that the dog is the responsibility of the child
and the
parents are not supposed to help too much. I do definitely
agree that this
is important for a good working relation with the dog,
especially in the
first few months.
I agree that it needs to be the choice of the child to get a
guide dog. It
most certainly was me, not my parents, who decided that I would
get a guide
dog. They most certainly were not against it, but it was my
decision, and
they have always been mostly supportive of letting make my own
personal
choices.
I also agree that having a child get a guide dog because the
child is
supposedly safer is not a valid reason for a child to get a
guide dog,
especially if the parents expect the dog to protect the child.
I do agree that some people are probably not mature enough at
thirteen or
fourteen to get a guide dog, but I am sure that some do exist.
Again, it is
something that needs to be considered differently for each
situation.
It is not *horrible* to wait till you are sixteen, but I
certainly would
have enjoyed a guide dog a little sooner than I got one. I find
travel that
much easier and more enjoyable with a dog rather than a cane.
Perhaps one way of trying to make sure that the dog was actually
used as a
guide dog and did not just become a pet would be to have
stricter vision
requirements for younger children as I feel that younger
children are more
likely to use (or try to use) any remaining vision that they
have. This gets
back to that a person needs to have accepted his/her blindness
before
getting a guide dog.
I also don't like that people think that children can be more
independent
just because they have a guide dog. There is nothing that keeps
a parent
from reaching over and holding on to his/her child if the child
has a dog
any more than if the child has a cane. I am an adult, and
people still try
to hold onto and direct me when I am using my dog.
Returning to the point about children having to tell people,
including
people older than him/her, not to pet the dog, I can definitely
tell where
this would be a problem. However, if it is junior high and not
elementary
school, I would think that the school staff could come to
understand the
rules, even if it had to come from someone other than the child,
such as a
rep from the guide dog school.
As a closing case, I will say that, although I reference my
experiences in
this email, my experiences certainly are not those of every
blind child.
Nicole
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Deanna Lewis
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 5:05 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog
Users(nagdu at nfbnet.org)
Subject: [nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to
children between
the ages of 11 & 17 years old.
What do you all think about this...
Deanna and Pascal
MIRA - The only organization in the United States dedicated to
providing
guide dogs to blind children and youth between the ages of
11-17.
MIRA: from the Spanish "look", "to have one's sights set on",
was the
nickname of a favorite guide dog trained by Eric St. Pierre,
founder of MIRA
Canada. MIRA Foundation USA takes its name from its
collaboration with MIRA
Canada, a nonprofit organization founded in 1981 upon the belief
that all
individuals, regardless of their physical challenges, should be
able to set
their sights on the same goals as those people born without
handicaps.
Today, MIRA Canada is recognized as a global leader in the
breeding,
selection, and training of guide and service dogs. MIRA USA was
created in
2008 as a legally separate entity, but with close ties to MIRA
Canada, where
our dogs are currently trained.
Our mission is to offer blind children in the United States
between the ages
of 11-17 the opportunity to receive guide dogs free of charge,
to provide
targeted educational outreach to promote public awareness, and,
as we
continue to grow, to offer support services to the adult
population of blind
and their families.
It is our experience that blind children, for the most part, are
highly
adaptive, fiercely determined, and seek to have many of the same
opportunities as their sighted peers. Although a cane provides
an adequate
degree of mobility for the blind and severely visually impaired,
there
remain some serious limitations. For example, it is impossible
to navigate
with a cane when there is no tactical information such as what
is provided
by sidewalks. A child living in a rural area is severely
challenged by this
restriction.
Furthermore, a cane tends to be isolating, whereas a dog
provides a social
bridge to the sighted community. Not only are dogs social
creatures, they
also provide stability and a level of protection through their
visual
awareness training that a cane could never replicate.
Finally, a guide dog provides a young blind person with a
greater level of
self-reliance at an early age. Although a very young student is
not going to
be out on the streets alone with their dog, having the ability
to navigate
without holding a parent's hand is crucial to developing
maturity and
confidence. The student's freedom and mobility are especially
enhanced in
the school environment with the assistance of a guide dog.
Although there is
no cure for blindness, there can be hope, and we at MIRA witness
it every
day through the service of a MIRA guide dog.
http://www.mirausa.org/
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