[NAGDU] intersections/quiet cars/issues loosing line of ssight and recovering from it

Diane Vlasoff guide.dog.teams at gmail.com
Wed Mar 2 04:31:58 UTC 2016


Hello all-

My current guide dog, Jaxi, and I are soon to reach our second
anniversary. For the vast majority of her guide work I have only
accolades.  However…

This afternoon as we approached the curb of a t shaped intersection a
car crossed our pat to make a right turn.  We stopped at the curb and
let the car make its right turn.  Assuming the intersection was then
empty I told Jaxi “Forward” and we began to cross the street.  Before
we crossed the entire right lane Jaxi stopped.

Since we were standing in a traffic lane with who knows what traffic
heading towards us, I asked her to go forward again a few times but
she stood still.
Finally I heard a car in the next lane over make a left turn.  It was
entirely silent until it moved.

Jaxi is my 4th guide dog and I have not had this experience before.
It unnerves me that Jaxi should start across an intersection that she
cannot cross without stopping.  It concerns me that this behavior left
us standing essentially in the middle of an intersection. And I am
concerned that I could not hear the silent car which might enable me
to ask Jaxi to work around the car waiting to make a left turn.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?  What did you do?  How can I
reduce our risk in possible future scenarios like this?

My three previous dogs came from GDB.  I wanted and am happy to have a
guide of a breed that I could not get from
GDB but I do not think any of my GDB dogs would have had this problem.

The trainer Jaxi and I worked with at school was extremely elderly and
did not present us with the vast majority of skills necessary to work
at home.  For example, during our “final exam” we were asked to
complete the following skills we did not cover in class and being it
was my first time with a dog from this school it would have been nice
to know how she was taught to:
Go through revolving doors;  go up or down staircases; leave or enter
escalators; or enter or leave elevators.

My second question is:
Jaxi has lost her line of travel while crossing streets before.   If a
car is preparing to make a right turn at the far side of an
intersection we have either ended up floundering somewhere across the
street or actually walking down a lane of traffic with me commanding
her to “left find the curb” over and over until someone at the bus
stop came to rescue us.

I know the school I got Jaxi from does not have the follow up support
I could have gotten at GDB, so I appreciate your help particularly any
of you who train your own dogs.

Diane and Jaxi




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