[nagdu] Engaging distractors

Lisa dreamymarmot93 at yahoo.de
Sun May 17 17:50:03 UTC 2015


Hello Tracy and all,

Like many others, I often decide that it's best to just tell my dog what to 
do and not talk to the distractor. Taylor has learned to go by people who 
talk to him or try to approach him and I'm thankful for that. If I'd start 
to talk to them he'd want to greet them, too, and  I think it would be 
confusing for him that we suddenly do this. Then there are people who 
realize that the dog is working and they apologize. Then I tell them it's 
okay and I'm glad they understand. But well, most of the people just talk to 
the dog or try to get hjim focused on them. And yeah, I don't feel like 
talking to them then and think it's more important that Taylor knows what we 
do in such a situation.

Lisa
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tracy Carcione via nagdu" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione at access.net>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2015 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Engaging distractors


> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> nagdu mailing list
>> nagdu at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> nagdu:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/tami%40poodlemutt.c
>> om
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/carcione%40access.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/dreamymarmot93%40yahoo.de 





More information about the NAGDU mailing list