[nagdu] The Differences in Dogs and Canes

[Star Gazer]

You obviously view the cane as negative, your posts are full of negative
language. You yourself have said you hate the cane. That baffles me, as the
cane doesn't feel anything about you, one way or another. 
You are entitled to your opinion, just realize it is exactly that, your
opinion. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Raven Tolliver
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 7:41 PM
To: nagdu
Subject: Re: [nagdu] The Differences in Dogs and Canes

To Sharonda and Cindy Ray,
Allow me to clear up your misunderstandings.
I never said anything about guide dog users being better than cane users.
Such a statement could not possibly be true since there are people who are
far better with a cane than some people are with guide dogs, and vice versa.
Also, using a dog would not make anyone a better person, traveler, etc. What
I said was that guide dogs are better mobility aids than canes. This is
because dogs have a wider degree of vision, so to speak, than a cane. My
cane can only find things within a four to five foot radius of my body. My
dog can see across an entire parking lot, and react to things in advance so
that I don't ever encounter them. If there is an obstacle in front of us, if
possible, my dog starts moving over before we get within three feet of the
obstruction.
I never compared people in my previous post. It would not make sense to,
since we're talking about mobility aids specifically.
To help illustrate what I mean, let's use the example of pen and paper
compared to a laptop computer. My roommate prefers pen and paper, while my
buddy, Nick prefers his laptop. Using a laptop does not make Nick a better
person or writer than my roommate. And just because my roommate can't afford
a laptop, doesn't care to learn better computer skills, and prefers not to
deal with the malfunctioning and maintenance of a laptop, does not mean that
her pen and paper are better than the laptop. In this situation, the cane is
the pen and paper, and the dog is the laptop with far more capabilities. My
roommate's penmanship may be better than her typing skills, but her pen and
paper do not outshine a laptop. We are talking about tools with certain
levels of capability, apart from their potential users.
One tool may require more cost, time, and maintenance than another, but this
is the cost of having a tool with higher functionality, and more guaranteed
capabilities and precision. Cars are better than bikes, smart phones are
better than their track phone and flip phone predecessors, power tools are
better than manual hand tools, and central AC units are better than
window-mounted air conditioning units. Does that make more sense?
Also, I guess the reason why I think of hitting something with a cane as
still running into it is because the way other people reacted when I would
hit things with my cane. People would comment, laugh, and some people would
want to help me so that I would hit absolutely nothing else with my cane.
Too, I felt that hitting things with my cane slowed me down greatly; and in
highly furnished rooms or crowds, hitting things or people doesn't help find
ways around them. Like I said before, the dog is better because it allows
the user to react to obstacles, pathways, doorways, and such, as a sighted
person would. My dog knows in advance that what we want to go to or want to
avoid is coming up, so he reacts to it immediately. The cane does not give
its user time to react in advance; and I count that fact as a drawback.

--
Raven

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