[nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to children between the ages of 11 & 17 years old.

Mon Jun 3 14:32:41 UTC 2013

People say all kinds of things. How do you know that what you were told was
true? Did you know the handler? Did you know the dog was "taken" or did the
handler decide to no longer use the dog for any number of reasons? 
Be careful of things you hear, all of us. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ashley Coleman
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 2:11 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Guide dog school that offers guide dogs to children
between 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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>>
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