[NAGDU] [nagdu] guiding in a heel

S L Johnson SLJohnson25 at comcast.net
Mon Apr 18 15:21:49 UTC 2016


Danielle:

I have worked dogs from GDF as well as other schools who do not teach leash 
guiding.  I have found that even if a dog has not been taught to guide on 
leash, they will try and to it anyway.  For example, Tara, my previous dog 
from GDF would try and guide even when we were walking with a sighted guide. 
Although she has cataracts making her unsafe for me as a guide, she is still 
trying to guide her new owner in her retirement home.  My current dog, Eva 
from Pilot Dogs was not taught leash guiding.  They insist we heel the dogs 
in the building and when taking them out for relief.  I found Eva putting 
just enough tension on the leash or giving me a nudge with her head to 
indicate a direction to me.  Since I prefer leash guiding I let her do this 
and none of the trainers ever picked up on her subtle clues.  I think it is 
just natural for our guides to do what they were trained to do.  As long as 
you can control him and he isn't pulling on the leash too much when you ask 
him to walk with a loose leash at heel, then I think he is doing fine.  I 
have had guide dogs for over 40 years and all of them have wanted to guide 
on leash as much as they did in harness.  I think they just love their job 
and want to keep us safe at all times.  Happy walking.

Sandra and Eva

-----Original Message----- 
From: Danielle Sykora via NAGDU
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 10:40 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

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