[nagdu] Why, or why not?

[Julie J.]

Firstly, that amount of shedding makes me wonder if there wasn't some sort 
of underlying health issue.  Low thyroid levels can cause shedding like 
that.

I'm struggling with my guide Jetta right now.  She was accosted by a loose 
dog on Wednesday.  She was dog distracted before that and now  we are 
experiencing major, major setbacks.   Obviously people who aren't 
responsible for their dogs are a pretty large annoyance to me right now. 
It's not enough that I'm considering not having a guide dog, but it is 
enough that I find myself evaluating which streets I walk down.

The other big downside to having dogs for me is out of town travel.  I have 
two guides right now, my older and slowing down Monty, and the younger Jetta 
who now requires remedial training to get over her issues with dogs.   If I 
go on out of town trips, I can obviously only take one dog.  There are very 
few people who I'm comfortable leaving my dogs with.

I've always had dogs and imagine I always will, but sometimes it is 
frustrating and inconvenient.

Julie
Courage to Dare: A Blind Woman's Quest to Train her Own Guide Dog is now 
available! Get the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXZSMOC
-----Original Message----- 
From: daniel via nagdu
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 11:05 AM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Cc: daniel
Subject: [nagdu] Why, or why not?

Hey guys, I haven't posted to the list in a while mainly because I don't
have my dog anymore; she was terrified of cars and couldn't do work properly
because of it. I know this is going to come off a bit negatively but I don't
mean it that way: I feel as if, guide dog users we have a tendency to extol
the greatness of using a guide dog, we always say how amazing it is and
wonderful having one by our side is but I feel that the cons aren't ever
really discussed. I retired my dog roughly a year ago and, at the time, it
was pretty tramatic (I literally cried for like an hour at a time). I'm now
really contemplating going back to The Seeing Eye again and am really
honestly wondering what kind of cons or negative things yall have ran into
while using a dog? I know there is a huuuge range of people from just
starting out to have had a dog for the past 20 years so I feel like I can
get some really good feedback. I know one for me was (and this may sound odd
or vain) was excessive shedding. I could brush and comb Irene for 30-45
minutes every evening and morning and yet, every time I got in a car there
would be fur everywhere and when I vacuumed I could've probably made a
pillow every time. I have literally never in my life seen a dog shed as much
as that and am quite frankly not sure where all the fur came from off a 45
pound dog. However, I think I could deal with it again if I were to get
another guide dog; I would just have to get even better at managing. I have
a few others but I'm wondering what are some for yall?

Again, I really am not trying to be negative just really trying to get the
whole story.again.

I'm also (obviously) trying to decide if I want to go back again (that's a
whole other post though, I think). I'm also not really trying to say (nor do
I want yet another debate) that canes are better than dogs or vice versa.

Thanks,

Dan.



P.s: This is a sort of spinoff from "would I ever give up having a dog?"

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