[nagdu] Bad weather and class

Sat Feb 15 07:50:00 UTC 2014

tracy I  agree our sidewalks and parking lots have been hit and miss 
this winter. Many people don't bother to shovel there walks. Tres 
doesn't mind the snow.
On 2/14/2014 12:11 PM, Tracy Carcione wrote:
> 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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