[nagdu] guidedog and mobility skills

[Dan Weiner]

Well let's see.
In large measure what you have is the same situation as many of us would
have going to new places.
You will:

1. have to find someone to orient you if, for example, you go to the same
platform all the time you can learn the route there.
2. Ask people in the station.
You will either ask a passer-by  or maybe someone working at the station.
I know that's how I had to do it when I used the subways or trains wherever
I was.
After a while your dog I suspect wowill get very good  at learning how to
find specific things you might need or learning routes.
A good way, though some people don't like this, is to have your dog follow
the person, in other words you follow the person with the dog, while they
indicate turns to you.

Now a more creative strategy might be to advertise with say universities,
charitable organizations, or even on internet list, offering to pay someone
to help you, or to even buy them a meal or something.
I have used that in the past with volunteers.

I'm sad to say there are no other options really.
But I am curious to see what other people tell you 


	 den preju.

Dan


-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mária Orovcíková
via nagdu
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2014 7:10 AM
To: debby phillips; NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog
Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] guidedog and mobility skills

Hello Debbie and all,
this is going to be a bit long mail, so I apologize in advance.
Thank you very much for offering help.
Well, I would like to go places I've never been before on my own.
Let's say I want to go somewhere out of my town and I need to take a few
buses.
I can get fine from my apartment to the bus stop and take a local bus which
takes me either to the town centre, bus/train station or wherever I need to
go within my town.
Let's say I need to go to the bus/train station. Once I get off the bus I
must go to a platform or another bus stop from which buses take me out of
the town. Although I live in a small town, and main bus stop or train
station are not large areas, there are a few platforms/buses from which
buses/trains go to different places around the country, so certainly I must
know which part of the country I need to go to. It is not a big deal because
when I check train/bus schedules and once I find a bus, there is platform
number. What I find difficult is to navigate around main bus stop/train
station to find a platform I need. I know there are some options, but I
cannot find the one that would work for me. So let's
see:
1. I could take a taxi which would get me from my apartment straight to the
platform. The problem is I cannot rely on the taxis in this country as we do
not have such a law which says that the owner and his guide dog cannot be
refused being in a taxi and here taxi drivers are not happy to take people
with dogs, no matter whether it is a pet dog or a guide dog. 
It all depends on individual driver whether they take a person with a dog or
not; so I'd rather rely on local buses.
2. I can ask mobility instructor to teach me how to navigate the platforms.
As I live in a small town we have only one mobility instructor and she has
more than 80 blind people to work with. She teaches people not only mobility
skills, but also computer skills and daily-living skills, so she cannot work
with me as much as I would like.
3. I could ask my parents, relatives or friends to show me or describe the
routes. As for my parents, they both work and they don't have time to show
me the routes. They are not good at describing routes as well. 
Another thing is that they always go places by car and never use local
buses.
As for friends, I do have some but they are not in my area. The reason is I
have been away from my hometown since I was 5. I went to elementary and high
school for the blind and then to university in different towns, so I did not
have any chance to make new friends where I live.
When I traveled to university and back home, my mom always took me to the
bus stop by car and picked me up, so I could not learn the route taking
local buses.
Yes, it's true, I have a guide dog, but at times I got her, we were trained
in the city where I attended university. I had someone there who was great
at describing routes in details, so it was great.
4. Another option is to check the area with GPS app such as blindsquare or
google maps, but, unfortunately, the platforms are not marked and shown in
the maps.
So does anyone have any other suggestions how to figure out this situation?
I really can't and I certainly do not want to be always dependent on my mom
or someone else to pick me up and take me to the train/bus station.
Any ideas would be very highly appreciated.
Thank you for reading this e-mail to the end and for all your help. I hope
my mail makes sense.
Have a wonderful day.
With kind regards
Maria
On 1. 11. 2014 16:59, debby phillips via nagdu wrote:
> Hi Maria, I'm not sure about any such list.  But perhaps we could 
> help?     Blessings,    Debby and Neena
>
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