[nagdu] First time poster

[Raven Tolliver]

Hi Laura, welcome to the list!
I’m Raven, a junior in college and a Guiding Eyes grad, working with
my first dog.
As everyone else has said, ultimately it is your responsibility to
tell people what you want them to know about your dog. That goes for
telling them when it is not appropriate to pet or talk to the dog, or
even whether you will reveal the dog’s name to others. If you don’t
have a problem being in the spotlight, then do what works best. But I
would rather inform people myself so they are for certain receiving
accurate information.
I hope that you do not encounter any professors who make a fuss about
a service animal in class. If they do, try talking to the professor
privately and explaining the different access laws concerning service
animals. You can also contact your college’s disability services
coordinator who should help you if problems arise. If you need to,
reach out to your guide dog school, the NFB, the ACB, your local Lions
Club, or other organizations that can assist with blindness issues.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Also, you cannot focus on correcting and controlling people , you can
only control your dog. In class, you will be taught the commands to
keep your dog moving through crowds. I have worked my dog for a year,
and this weekend we went to an outdoor festival. It was very crowded,
with people in every age group, and people reaching out to pet the
dog, making barking noises, and even petting without my permission.
Most of these things did not distract him, but for the things that
did, I would just give my dog the proper commands to keep him moving
and focus on his job.
Angled sidewalks are indeed more common on college campuses and at
malls. What has worked for my dog and I is targeting. You can learn
what targeting and clicker training are in a Google search, and you
will put it to use during your training with your guide dog. I use the
clicker, food rewards and verbal praise to target angled sidewalks. I
found this helped the most because my dog was confused by these
y-shaped forks and would sometimes pass up a sidewalk that I needed.
After you target these paths and reward your dog for taking you to
them, the dog will obey a “left” or “right” command and take you to an
angled path automatically.
I completely disagree with the statement that your training program
will teach you everything you need to know about training, caring, and
handling your dog. I’m gonna say that most, if not all, trainers have
never been on our side of the guide dog situation, so there are a
number of things they consider common sense, or situations that occur
after you go home that they don’t warn you about. I understand that 28
days is not enough time to teach everything about handling and caring
for a guide dog, but I feel, as a person who has never before owned
and was completely ignorant about caring for dogs, that there was a
great deal of information I was not given.
The thing about home training is that there is not likely to be the
persistent presence of other grads around you, and so there will not
be as many people to ask questions, bounce ideas off of, and get good
ideas from. If you ever want a second opinion during your training,
feel free to reach out to the list, or e-mail me at:
Rdt002 at aquinas.edu.
All the best with your training, and keep us updated!
-- 
Raven


Original Message:
Sent: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 08:45:19
From: Laura <lltcna at yahoo.com>
To: "nagdu at nfbnet.org" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [nagdu] First time poster
Thank you everyone who has responded I have a few targeted questions
1. I know that in my classes the students will be told by the
professor on the first day the rules of the team ask to pet and ect.
But how do I handle the crowded walkways were form what I am told the
students are lees well behaved and are more likely to cause a
distraction
2. How do I deal with difficult professors that don't understand the
importance of making the rules clear to the class or worse yet don't
want a dog in class
3. I understand from a Juno walk that the dogs turn left or right at
90 degrees on my campus there are a lot of sidewalks the go out at
other angles is there a different command to take this type of turn vs
a 90 degree turn one school that I talked to before I found freedom
told me this is unique to college campuses and malls
Sorry so long
Laura