[NAGDU] Escalators, and how different schools handle them?

Tue Jul 18 19:11:28 UTC 2017

One time when we were at NFB Convention, Lukas Frank was there. I was doing
that withSpencer, but he was hard to ift that way. He took him and took him
on the escalator and then said, "You don't need to do that with him. He is
good with the escalator." I haven't done it with a dog since.
Cindy Lou Ray
cindyray at gmail.com

-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Buddy Brannan via
NAGDU
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 1:12 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Buddy Brannan <buddy at brannan.name>
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Escalators, and how different schools handle them?

Hi,

My understanding is that GDF doesn't teach the picking your dog up by the
backstrap thing anymore. (I think that an instructor may have had an
uncomfortable reminder of wy that's maybe not the best idea ever, but I'm
not sure. ...) 

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
Mobile (preferred): (814) 431-0962
Phone: (814) 860-3194
Email: buddy at brannan.name

> On Jul 18, 2017, at 12:04 PM, Heather Bird via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
wrote:
> 
> David, you mentioned picking up your dog by the chest strap. I have 
> heard that some schools teach you to pick the dog up at the end, but I 
> have never seen it done. None of the schools I have attended teaches 
> it that way, or at least they did not at the time I attended their 
> training programs. Could you refresh my memory as to which school 
> Clair Rose is from? Also, what exactly is the procedure that you were 
> taught? I've been taught to work the dog up to the escalator, where 
> they will stop at the near side of the plate. Then you touch the hand 
> rail and verify that the escalator is running away from and not towards
you, and to confirm the slope, up or down of the steps.
> Then, you drop the harness handle and make a very short leash, pulling 
> your dog up pretty close to you. Then you heal your dog across the 
> metal plate, stopping right at the far edge. Then you give your dog 
> the command to heal or to come with you. I use "let's go." Then you 
> step quickly and decisively onto the moving steps, bringing your dog 
> along with you to make sure that they move briskly and smoothly over the
gap from where the stairs issue.
> Then you stand beside your dog, and very slightly ahead of them, with 
> their leash wrapped around your arm to keep them from moving ahead of 
> you or dropping back behind you. You ride with your right arm extended 
> out far in front of you and your hand on the right hand rail so that 
> you will know right away when the slope starts to level out, 
> indicating that you are approaching the end of the escalator. When you 
> are getting close you remind your dog to stay, in my case, "rest" then 
> when you judge that you are about one or two steps from the gap, you 
> tell your dog "break" and give them the full length, all the slack, of the
short configuration of the working leash.
> Your dog will leap off the end, with a small jump over the gap, but 
> not one so big as to pull the handler off balance. You pick up your 
> toes and step across the gap at about the same time that your dog is 
> jumping off. You move along with your dog forward and off of the metal 
> plate, then pick up the harness handle and continue on. This was 
> pretty much the same procedure I was taught at GEB, Fidelco and the 
> Seeing Eye. I do not know if GEB or Fidelco have changed since I was 
> working with them, but I just did escalators last summer at TSE and 
> what I currently do is in line with what they are teaching most or all 
> of their students at this time. I have heard that some schools 
> absolutely refuse to teach their teams to do escalators, and I 
> understand that some schools teach it, but use different methods. So, 
> I am interested in the methods that are being used by other programs. 
> I believe that extremes are foolish in most cases. Absolutely outright 
> forbidding grads to use escalators, ever, under any circumstances and 
> never exposing the dogs to them, seems to me very negligent. On the 
> complete opposite end of the continuum would be the completely lax 
> attitude of a program that would give little or no guidance for 
> handling escalators, assuming them to be safe and having no dedicated 
> commands or specialized procedures for teams to negotiate escalators. 
> So, a school teaching them, but doing so with prudent caution seems to 
> be the most sensible and also seems to be how the majority of schools 
> are doing it these days. I've always taken my dogs on escalators and I
will always continue to do so, but I will also always maintain a healthy
respect for them and treat them with caution.
> For instance, at convention, I used the escalators rather than the 
> stairs for almost every single instance of floor changes that we did, 
> because Ilsa absolutely adores escalators and loves finding them for 
> me, and asking her to locate them was a great way to quickly get from 
> the main hotel to the main convention area or from the far flung 
> meeting rooms to the transition from the convention space to the 
> entertainment and sleeping room portion of the hotel. However, when I 
> was helping a wheelchair user who could stand and walk a little bit, I 
> put Ilsa's leash around a railing, far from the escalator, so that she 
> could not try to follow me, and I helped the friend to stand on the 
> escalator and ride down. Then I folded the wheelchair and carried it 
> down as I rode the escalator. Then I ran up the stairs, collected Ilsa 
> and then road down with her. I could have physically carried the chair 
> down while riding with Ilsa, but I would not have had appropriate 
> control over her to help to ensure her safety, so I worked her and 
> carried the chair separately and it worked just fine. Last comment, it 
> is not generally advisable to work your dogs on the moving sidewalks, 
> but I think it is important to know how they work just in case of
emergencies. I was once working through an airport with an individual who
knew very little English.
> We were in a hurry to catch our plane and they wanted to take me to an 
> elevator at one point, which was about ten minutes of walking out of 
> our way. I told them that my dog could do escalators and that I did 
> not have time to go and take an elevator. We did the escalator fine, 
> then we encountered what the man referred to as an escalator. It 
> sounded like an escalator. I didn't feel a hand rail, but I thought 
> that perhaps it was very wide to accommodate people with suitcases, so 
> I stepped on. I realized right away that it was a moving sidewalk. I 
> immediately asked English speaking passengers along with me on the 
> sidewalk questions about how long it was and how close we were to the 
> end. I made Frieda stand and stay using the rest command and I moved 
> quite a ways ahead of her. I pointed my toes slightly up so that they 
> would clear the gap and warn me so that I could step off. The audible 
> warning that the walkway was ending was a good ten seconds before you 
> actually reached the end so it was not a good marker of the end of the 
> moving belt we were standing on. I timed it such that as I was exiting 
> I gave Frieda the command to jump off, and she did so, and it worked 
> just fine. I would not recommend intentionally taking these moving 
> sidewalks with a guide dog, but my knowledge of how they worked from 
> riding them with a cane and my school's training regarding escalators 
> helped me to make a potentially dangerous situation a heck of a lot safer,
for which I am very grateful.
> 
> 
> 
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