[NAGDU] Progress already

[Tracy Carcione]

Hi Danielle.
That's a thought, teaching him a command that means he should go ahead.  We
do it in the bus, though I haven't assigned a word to it.  It could be handy
with the darned bushes, too. Though I think he may be a dog who wants me to
be in the approved guiding position, whenever possible.  I'll have to mull
this over.
Tracy



-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Danielle Sykora
via NAGDU
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2016 11:38 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Danielle Sykora
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Progress already

I'm so glad Krokus is making progress so quickly. It seems like he
understands what you're looking for, but he just needs a little refresher. I
totally understand the difficulty with overgrown bushes and such. I live in
an area with narrow sidewalks and a lot of trees and foliage. If the
sidewalk is totally blocked, I expect Thai to find the way around it of
course. If the sidewalk is only half obstructed, I have him stop and show it
to me, and then squeeze by or just kind of push branches out of the way.
It's usually better than walking around it in the street. I'm trying to
teach him a specific command that means to walk in front of me to make it
completely clear that's what I'm looking for rather than just stepping
behind him in narrow spaces, but we'll see how that goes.

Danielle and Thai

On 7/16/16, Tracy Carcione via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Already I'm seeing progress in my efforts to get Krokus to be more 
> careful about what's on my right.
>
> Lunchtime Thursday, he cut a corner to get where we were headed and 
> pushed me into a very shallow cutout.  I stopped and scolded him, and 
> made him re-work it.  He nailed it, and right away I could feel him 
> paying more attention.  I've had to stop and show him a few places 
> since, where bushes were growing way over the sidewalk, and he's 
> understood right away what was wrong and done better.  It's hard, when 
> people let their bushes pretty much block the sidewalk.  The choices 
> are to squeeze past, or to step off into the grass, which is sometimes 
> quite a drop.  So I'm telling Krokus to stop, show me the obstacle, 
> then we squeeze past, carefully.  Sometimes I think I should walk around
town with a machete.
>
>
>
> I've also gotten out the clicker and treat bag so I can click the 
> downcurb and stop his tendency to creep up to it.
>
>
>
> I'm really pleased with the puppinator.  Seems like all he needed was 
> a bit of a reminder about what's expected.  We'll se how he does 
> Monday in the City, when he's usually a bit excited.  Wish I was so 
> enthusiastic about Monday morning.
>
> Tracy
>
>
>
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