[nagdu] The Differences in Dogs and Canes

[Buddy Brannan]

Cindy, you’re right on this one. There are tradeoffs to everything, it just depends on which things you’re willing to accept and compromise. Dogs, for instance, aren’t as good at finding the fourth sidewalk on the left, past the telephone pole. That is, until they’re patterned to find that particular one. You can’t as easily use physical objects as landmarks with a dog, as a dog will usually treat such things as obstacles, again, unless patterned otherwise. However, dogs are much, much better at traversing wide open areas like parking lots and heading straight for a door than a cane is. I believe that, yes, a good cane user can travel with similar speed and efficiency to a good guide dog user. The places that will slow a cane user down are different from the ones that will slow down a guide dog user, and I suspect, though have no hard data to prove, that these things even out in the end. 
--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
Phone: (814) 860-3194 or 888-75-BUDDY



On Jun 23, 2013, at 4:39 PM, Cindy Ray <cindyray at gmail.com> wrote:

> OK, yeah, but there are things that a dog doesn't detech that a cane does, especially if said dog is distracted. And sometimes they will come to stairs and not stop; they shouldn't, and you can correct the behavior, but you could get hurt. Stuff happens, and it does even if you are sighted. 
> 
> CL
> 
> On Jun 23, 2013, at 2:08 PM, "Nicole Torcolini" <ntorcolini at wavecable.com> wrote:
> 
>> Okay, yes, I know that this one has gone round and round before, but I had
>> something happen today that made me just have to bring it up one more time.
>> There is the way of thinking that says that the good cane user should be
>> able to travel as quickly and as safely with a cane as with a dog. However,
>> unless you wear a full body shield, I just don't think that that is true.
>> For reasons that I will not discuss here, I was out walking today with my
>> cane rather than Lexia. I was traversing a route that I have taken numerous
>> times with Lexia. Lexia usually stays a tiny bit from the edge of the side
>> walk. However, as I was using my cane rather than Lexia, I was trailing the
>> edge. There is a staircase that comes down from a building that has a
>> railing that sticks out farther than the bottom step. With Lexia, this had
>> never before posed a problem as she had cleared it as an obstacle. However,
>> I had no way of detecting it without her; it was at hip level. As a result,
>> I ran right into it. I was not hurt or anything, but it just goes to show
>> that there are those things that a guide dog, at least a well trained one,
>> usually detects that a cane cannot.
>> 
>> Nicole
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