[nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to childrenbetween the ages of 11 & 17 years old.
Nicole Torcolini
ntorcolini at wavecable.com
Mon Jun 3 13:55:39 UTC 2013
You wrote that it was your understanding. How or through whom or what did
you come by this information? I am not saying that I disagree with you;
however, you are not giving enough of the story to be evidence to support
your statements or allow for us to draw our own conclusions .
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ashley Coleman
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 2:16 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to
childrenbetween the ages of 11 & 17 years old.
From my understanding; the dog was under wait, and the handeler sometimes
was very forceful with the dog.
AC
On 6/2/2013 4:15 PM, Sarah wrote:
> 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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