[nagdu] An Introduction

[Valerie Gibson]

Hi,

I respect your oppinion and if I could, I would love to be spotted by a sighted person who knows about guide dog training.  The only problem is finding a sighted person who can offer constructive critisisms without making it sound as if "well, I knew you couldn't do this all along".  

As I've stated, it's hard to find a sighted trainer who's willing to give a blind owner trainer a shot.  

With that being said, Zion's not at the stage where we're putting a lot of imphasis on street crossings.  The most we'll do is suburbean streets.  Again, as stated, I'll never put him in a situation where he'd fail because he's only 9 months.  

Akitas reach physical and psychological maturation at the age of 2 and 3 respectively, so he might not work on street crossing until he's about a year or a year and a half.  It's just going to depend on him.  This might give me time to find a spotter.  Even if I had a sighted dog trainer tell me what he or she would be looking for in terms of walking and form, I could pass that onto a sighted friend and that friend could act as the go between...I hope that made sense.  However it seems to me that a lot of guide dog schools don't wish to divulge their training secrets, but maybe I'm mistaken.

In regards to the harnes I've got: I showed it to my friends and because they were trained with a different type of handle, they don't like mine, but tthey all say, "If it works for you, use it".  They admit that they like their harnesses better because it's what they are used to.  Zion and I have adapted our walking styles toone another rather than my finding a harness that adapts me to him.  Maybe it's not the right way to do things, but it's worked for us, and since I'm the only one who's trained him, I figured it doesn't really matter.   
I do have a question for you guys who train your own dogs.

Zion does this thing where he  will technically walkforward, but he'll turn the front part of his body one way or the other to see  something in the distance.  It's harder to fix when he's turned in my direction and he's almost cutting in my path.  How do you guys handle this?  I don't know if it's just because he's a puppy and easily distracted, but sometimes he walks like a drunk dog. lol. Any thoughts on fixing this?

Thank you guys for reading this.


On Aug 21, 2014, at 10:10 PM, debby phillips via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi Valerie, your post was very interesting, and I can see that you have put a lot of time and thought in to the process.  I do not believe that every blind person should and could train their own dog, but I have seen one that was awesome.  The man who trained him did a great job.  I believe though that his next dog was from one of the schools.  I think I do have a couple of concerns.  One is this: traffic is becoming more and more dangerous.  It doesn't mean that we should all stay home and never go out.  Lol.  But it does mean that we, and our dogs need to be extra aware.  Gone are the days of simply listening for a surge of parallel traffic and heading across the street.  There are turning lanes, right on red, and cars are just plain quieter, and I'm not even talking about the hybrids.  Seeing Eye does a lot of traffic training with our dogs, some of it using the general public and some of it that they set up.  Keeping a certain distance from traffic is important.  So if you can find a trainer who is willing to work with you on that part, I recommend that.  I hope that ow am not sounding like I am against what you are doing, I'm not.  I admire you for your effort, and wish you success.
> 
> I may offend some folks when I say the following: I do not believe that a blind person can train me with a dog.  Dogs and people move faster than people who travel with canes, (though I know some very fast walkers who use canes.  There are certain parts of instruction that a blind person could do, like some of the dog care, things like that.  But instructors see how the dog and person are walking together, they can often figure out whether a different kind of harness is needed, for instance.  Right away, my instructor saw that I was not giving Neena enough tension in the harness, and that sometimes I was pushing her.  I don't think that a blind instructor would see that.  In those early days of training it's so important to get feedback, and I really believe, that at least in this situation, that feedback needs to come from an instructor who can make visual observations.  Now, I have had two blind mobility instructors, and they were awesome, and I had no issue with them.  But I think there's a difference between cane travel and traveling with a dog.
> 
> It's okay if you disagree with me, I had a friend while I was a student at CCB and we debated this issue a lot.  He never did convince me, by the way.  (Grin).  But it wasn't for lack of trying.  But that doesn't mean that I haven't learned a lot from other people who use dogs as guides.  I definitely have, but not the basics, and not stuff dealing with dogs and traffic.
> 
> Well, I really need to be in bed now.  Tomorrow is Friday, yea! Maybe I'll get to more email then.  Again, good luck, Valerie!    Debby and Neena
> 
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