[nagdu] Home training.

[Daryl Marie]

Cindy,
Those problems actually stopped as suddenly as they started.
One day, jenny decided that she hated walking past diesel vehicles. She pulled really hard away from them on a consistent basis, even going so far as to turn completely around and try and run the opposite way or go running on the grass.
Thankfully our buses are diesel, and she didn't freak out when the buses pulled up beside us, so after a week and a half she figured out that diesel vehicles are not in and of themselves weren't bad.  Now she could care less what kind of vehicles pass us or start up beside us; we've even had emergency vehicles zoom past us with sirens blaring, and Jenny just keeps guiding calmly.

She also hated our LRT trains so much that she would shake and whimper the whole ride. At every stop she would try and bolt off the train.  And she wanted off the train so much that when it was my stop she would just pull hard; even in the stations she would nearly run to get away from the trains..
After a couple of trips like this, the trainer and I went to the end of the line and worked with Jenny on the train, finding the door, finding a seat, using treats and praise as motivators on the short trip. Then we did some more stuff downtown, went for coffee, then went back down to the train... and miracle of miracles... she found the door, a seat, sat quietly and calmly the whole trip back.
The trainer advised to take the train on a regular basis especially in the first couple of months post-training, which isn't hard for me to do.  Now, it's honestly where she does her best work.

Daryl

----- Original Message -----
From: Cindy Ray <cindyray at gmail.com>
To: Daryl Marie <crazymusician at shaw.ca>, NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 09:55:11 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Home training.

So do the issues still no longer exist in Jenny? Of course you can run into a problem even if you are training at the school, but home training would be interesting in that they can’t just go fetch out another dog. But the dog I had problems with and that was a concern came home with me and I still had to go back. I suppose it would have been similar with the home trained dog. But what would be interesting would be people who have truly needed to change out dogs during this at home training.

Cindy

On Aug 18, 2014, at 10:50 AM, Daryl Marie via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi, Deanna,
> I home-trained with Jenny, and I can speak to this situation in the abstract. During training Jenny exhibited some behaviors that were VERY concerning to the trainer. Thankfully she was honest enough with me to express her doubts and concerns; thankfully for both jenny and I, we were far enough in the training that we had bonded and able to work through these issues. If she had exhibited these behaviors in the first 1-2 weeks, she would've been washed out or retrained, but they just mysteriously showed in the third week. Thankfully by week number four, both the trainer and I were confident that the issues were resolved entirely or trainable.
> 
> Daryl
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Deanna Lewis via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users (nagdu at nfbnet.org) <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 09:28:36 -0600 (MDT)
> Subject: [nagdu] Home training.
> 
> Hi all,
> Tracy brought up an interesting topic, and it got me wondering. If a person does receive home training with their dog, what does happen if the dog is not a good match? I think this would be difficult, especially if you live far from the school. Does the trainer come back in a few weeks or months with a new dog? Or do they try to make the first dog work out? Please let me know of your experiences with home training and what to do if the dog is not a match or needs to be career changed. Thanks!
> Deanna and Pascal
> 
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