[nagdu] minature horses as guides

[Danielle Sykora]

The way I see it, there is a difference between saying "I don't think
horses are practical as guides because of their more frequent need to
relieve" and saying "guide horses are stupid because the only guide
horse I ever met was dangerous". I exaggerated a little but I hope you
understand my point. Expressing your opinion and explaining why you
feel that way is completely different from judging an entire group
based on one individual.

I prefer dogs to horses so a guide horse wouldn't be my first choice.
That being said, I don't think there is anything wrong with training a
horse as a guide. As others have pointed out, they have a much longer
life span and may be better for people who are more familiar and
comfortable working with horses as opposed to dogs. A guide horse
might even be a viable alternative for someone with a severe dog
allergy. I would imagine that horses would have different distractions
than dogs as well. As I understand it, horses spend most of their time
standing so would stand next to or maybe under a table rather than
laying under a chair. As long as the horse is kept out of the way, I
don't see anything wrong with this. I could be completely wrong
though, considering my limited experience with horses.

Danielle, Thai, and Bonnie (GDF puppy in training)
On 6/22/15, Cindy Ray via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> What you said is they are not practical. That was a statement not an
> opinion. I think others were saying this, too, and so I think that just to
> state that ffor me or in my opinion they don't seen practical. Maybe that's
> just hair splitting. It could be.
> I did like what Ann wrote here.
> Cindy
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Debby Phillips
> via nagdu
> Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2015 10:40 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users;
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Debby Phillips
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] minature horses as guides
>
> But why is it not okay to express our opinions? I think the original
> question was what was our opinion about guide horses? So we are expressing
> our opinions.  (Although I wouldn't call anyone stupid for using a guide
> horse, nor would I say that "horses are just farm animals".  Obviously
> there
> are some people who are using guide horses.  For me, as I expressed in an
> earlier email, no, no, and no.  I don't reation like horses, I'm not sure
> how practical they are, but I will defend the right of anyone to use a
> guide
> horse, as long as that horse is behaving and controlled,
> just as we try to have our dogs behave and under our control.
> Debby and Nova
>
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