[nagdu] Bad weather and class

Fri Feb 14 19:11:35 UTC 2014

Hi Raven.
Lucky you!  The sidewalks here in my town in Jersey are pretty hit-and-miss. 
There are clean patches, icy patches, parts that haven't been cleared at 
all, and parts where someone piled up the snow at the end of their bit.
I remember there were "passes" in the snow mountains at the street corners 
in St. Paul, where other pedestrians had tramped the snow down a bit.  Here, 
it seems like most people just walk in the street.  Not a great plan, as the 
snow is high enough to make escape difficult, if a truck comes along. Though 
the streets are a lot cleaner than the sidewalks.

I'm kinda surprised your golden guy had trouble with his first snow.  When I 
lived in Minnesota, my dogs came from GDB, and had never worked in snow, 
though they had seen it.  They didn't care; they adapted to snow travel very 
fast.

I love having a dog for snow work.  A hundred times better than a cane, IMO.
Tracy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Raven Tolliver" <ravend729 at gmail.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Bad weather and class

>I would imagine that classes go on. Sidewalks in most places are
> shoveled or salted, so ice is not as much a hazard as you might think.
> Not here in Michigan anyway. I've lived in Southeast and Western
> Michigan for a long while and the sidewalks are just as cared for as
> the streets are. Given, there are some places where you must walk over
> patches of snow. But patches of ice are pretty rare.
> My golden and I were still able to get out there and work despite the
> below freezing temperatures. Classes around here aren't cancelled
> unless the world is on the brink of ending, so the show goes on.
> Outside of classes, we still have errands to run, buses to hop, and
> volunteering to do. Life is definitely not put on hold because of the
> snow, and trust me, there is a lot of it here. You just work through,
> around, and over it, even if you have to climb over 2-1/2 feet of snow
> to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk.
> It would have been nice to score a winter class, but I don't think New
> York winters are anything like West Michigan winters, so it probably
> wouldn't have made a difference. Too, that would have clashed with the
> school semester, so it was out of the question.
> For people from different parts of the country who aren't used to
> working through so much frigid temps and copious amounts of snow, I
> would advise those people to avoid the winter classes if you plan on
> getting a dog from a place with weather like Momma Michigan's. It
> definitely takes some getting used to, even for some dogs, so if both
> the handler and dog are thrown off, your mobility is shot.
> My golden was very thrown off by the snow his first winter here in
> Michigan. His trainer couldn't even tell me how he'd handle it since
> the winter he was trained dropped little snow in New York. I had to
> put in extra training with him to get him acclimated so he would still
> turn down the paths I needed and stop at those curbs flush with the
> sidewalk. He got it down quickly, and this winter, he's guiding in the
> snow as if he's been doing it his whole life.
> Too, if you put booties on a dog, they definitely walk faster,
> especially if it's those clunky ones the schools commonly give out.
>
> On 2/14/14, Larry D. Keeler <lkeeler at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Welcome to Michigan's weather! It will finally go abov freezing this 
>> week!
>> Holly mostly didn't work much this winter because of the cold and
>> sidewalks.
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione at access.net>
>> To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users"
>> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 10:07 AM
>> Subject: [nagdu] Bad weather and class
>>
>>
>>> It seems like, here in Jersey, we've had a major storm every week for at
>>> least the last month, and, even when there's no storm, it's been very
>>> cold.
>>> I wonder how the schools around here are handling it.  Do people just go
>>> out, unless it's actually blizzarding, and stomp through the snow as 
>>> best
>>>
>>> they can?  I would have a hard time judging my new dog's pace, if all 
>>> the
>>>
>>> time we were walking carefully on ice, or maneuvering down narrow
>>> shovelled paths.  And in my book, one or two trips to the mall exhausts
>>> the possibilities for learning anything useful there.
>>> Or, I suppose, they could come into New York City a lot more, because 
>>> the
>>>
>>> City tends to clean the main walkways pretty well.  A lot better than my
>>> town does, for sure.
>>> I wonder what Leader does, since bad weather is a constant in Michigan
>>> winters?
>>> Anyone been in class in the northern part of the country during January 
>>> or
>>>
>>> February, with lots of snow?
>>> I'd be real interested to hear about it.
>>> Tracy
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
>
> -- 
> Raven
>
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