[nagdu] Engaging distractors

[Tracy Carcione]

Hi Tami.
It did occur to me yesterday that these people make no attempt to engage
*me, only my dog.  If they actually spoke to me, we could have a civilized,
if short, conversation.  So I guess just motoring on and focusing on my dog
is still the most sensible thing to do.
Tracy


-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tami Jarvis via
nagdu
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2015 12:58 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Tami Jarvis
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Engaging distractors

Tracy,

With Mitzi, I've tended to take a situational approach, engaging and
explaining when it's convenient, just ignoring and moving on when we need to
focus. She's a fairly reserved dog and not terribly food-motivated, so I
could be a bit lackadaisacal with her. In restaurants and such, I take a
firmer line and stay on the straight and narrow, making sure she knows we
are not there to socialize and poke our nose into other people's eating
space. So I just ignore distractors and move on. If people talk to me, I
will answer them, if a bit distractedly. There's usually so much noise and
bustle going on that I need to pay attention to stay oriented and weave
around all the moving obstacles and whatnot. To be honest, there are times I
would like to snap at folks for distracting my dog -- at least once, someone
has waved food at her as we went by! -- but I'm too busy finding the path to
be snotty.

Loki is good friends with everyone, just hasn't seen them for a bit and
needs to say hi. He does so with gentlemanly charm, but the concept of
letting people walk on by or of walking on by them is slow in coming. 
When we move on to more advanced public access training, that's going to
make life interesting. How I will change my ways of dealing with people
actually trying to distract him remains to be seen.

I think that just ignoring the bad behavior of distracting the guide dog
while it's working sends its own message, maybe even more clearly than
stopping to explain. I think of it in terms of operant conditioning. The
desired reward for the bad behavior is to get a reaction from the dog and
maybe from the handler, so denying that reward is negative reinforcement for
the bad behavior. If I'm standing in the grocery line or something with
nothing better to do, I'm more likely to talk about the whys and wherefors,
though it depends on the approach the other person is taking. Praising the
dog for ignoring the distraction really gets the message across, and
clicking and popping a treat in the dog's mouth can elicit a gasp of shock
from the person I'm rewarding her for ignoring. I think on that one, I
smiled and said to the world at general, "She's doing her job." It struck me
as awfully funny, I'm afraid.

I think in the diner situation, I would have done as you did and just moved
my dog along.

Tami


On 05/15/2015 06:15 AM, Tracy Carcione via nagdu wrote:
> I usually don't try to engage with people who are distracting my dog.  
> I'm so concentrated on controlling my wild young beast and getting him 
> back on track that I don't think of it, really.  I tend to treat human 
> distractors like yapping dogs or scampering squirrels, I guess.
>
> Last night, we ate at our local diner, and, as I was working Krokus 
> through the tables, where he is very apt to be distracted by food, 
> some guy we were passing was saying "Hi buddy!", more than once.  I 
> told Krokus softly but sharply to hopp up, and moved him on past and 
> out the door.  Then I wondered if I should have tried to engage the 
> guy and explain to him why distracting my dog was a bad idea.
>
> I wouldn't do it in New York City, probably, but my neighborhood here 
> in Jersey isn't so fast-paced.
>
> What do other people do?
>
> Tracy
>
>
>
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