[NAGDU] [nagdu] guiding in a heel

[Dan Weiner]

He sounds like a wonderful dog...well when my second dog, Evan, retired, I'd
take him on walks on leash and he still tried to guide me, so if we were
coming up to a parked car, though my cane would have found it, Evan would
try to guide me around it, and I could tell jus by how he felt on the leash
that we were coming up to a car or obstacle even before my cane found
it--smile. So  our dogs still try to do what they are used to and love doing
even when we don't ask them to.

Enjoy the day everyone, regards to both two-legged and four-legged list
members.

Dan 

-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Danielle Sykora
via NAGDU
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 10:41 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Danielle Sykora
Subject: [NAGDU] [nagdu] guiding in a heel

Hi everyone,

I've noticed that even when I have my dog walk in a heel position, he still
tries to perform some guiding tasks. It wasn't until about a week ago when I
started actively working on heeling in more distracting real life situations
that I realized he was actually trying to help, not just resisting loose
leash walking. For example, if I walk close to the left of a sidewalk, he
will use his head to push me to the right so that we will both fit, instead
of just walking in the grass (and he has no issues with walking in grass).
If I am using sighted guide and the person leads us into an area that is too
narrow to walk through side by side, Thai will hesitate to walk through as
if he were showing me a narrow space and then push me to the side to make
sure I don't walk into whatever is on the left.
I would expect most heeling dogs to simply move behind me so that they
wouldn't walk into the obstacle. Also, if we are on a sidewalk that curves
to one side, I would typically not realize this right away so I would end up
finding grass instead of sidewalk in front of me, and then use my cane to
trail the edge of the grass around the curve until I get to straight
sidewalk again. When I do this, Thai lightly pulls to the left when he sees
the sidewalk beginning to curve to the left.
He thinks I'm going to  walk into the grass or maybe trip over the edge of
the pavement which isn't exactly level with the soil next to it. This is
completely different from leash-guiding, where he will perform every guiding
task the same way he would in harness.

These behaviors don't necessarily bother me too much because he's usually
right and he walks nicely on a loose leash as long as I'm not doing anything
ridiculous, but I was curious to know if anyone else has had a dog that
tries to guide in a heel? Or is my dog unique and showing me what the
trainers really meant when they said he was switched from the non-guiding
service dog program because he kept trying to guide people?

Danielle and Thai

_______________________________________________
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/dcwein%40dcwein.cnc.net