[NAGDU] the open door policy

[Tami Jarvis]

Maybe we need a public information campaign about the dangers of opening 
doors for blind people? Just kidding. I do wish people wouldn't do it, 
though. Even if they don't hit me with the door, it's danged confusing. 
A couple of times lately, someone has opened the door for me and thought 
to say out loud that they have done so, which helps some. depending on 
where they are standing in relation to the open door. It can also 
increase the likely hood that I'll find the edge of the door with my 
shoulder or some other sensitive body part. Then there are the guys who 
open the door and hold it with their arm across the entry at head 
height, which causes the dog to stop while the person nags me and the 
dog to go through. There's probably a graceful way to handle the 
situation, but that never occurs to me at the time. Oh, well. Life's 
little adventures.

Mitzi seemed to learn to watch out for opening doors and would maneuver 
accordingly. This tended to confuse me, since I was expecting to walk up 
to the door and open it, but we did avoid being hit by overeager door 
openers. I've specifically taught Loki a back up command, though he's 
more likely to turn me around to get me in a better position to pass a 
moving obstacle. We don't get much honest-to-goodness crowd work around 
here, so he's still learning how to predict human actions. I should 
spend the Christmas season walking around in Wal-Mart or something.

Anyway, Mitzi learned from experience to notice a door opening and stop 
or maneuver me out of the way of the edge of it, and Loki seems to be 
learning. So I don't have any great training techniques to avoid the 
problem from the outset. It's easier if it's a glass door, so the dog 
can see the person on the other side start to open it. If there's 
someone approaching the door ahead of us, the dog stops, and I wait for 
the signal to go ahead through when the entry is clear or to go open the 
door for myself if the other person lets it close behind them. If 
someone is too quick to leap to open a door and lacks distance judgment, 
I'm not sure how to avoid the bruises. So I'm no help at all, but I have 
felt your pain and surely will again. /lol/

Tami

On 10/10/2017 09:07 AM, Dan Weiner via NAGDU wrote:
> Hello to all.
> 
> Dan here with the Parker Pup.
> 
> Well I know so many of you have had this issue, I'll walk up to a door 
> of a store and a nice person from inside opens it out towards me and 
> Parker, clipping me in the stomach and Parker in the nose. He has 
> started to move very slowly when approaching doors like that and I don't 
> blame him, any techniques you've found to minimize the effect of this 
> and deal with it. Now, before anyone says anything--lol I know that 
> people mean well, but they aren't thinking of course that the blind guy 
> doesn't see the door opening towards him, today it actually hit me in 
> the eye, some part of the door and it  hurts. I shoudl clarify, it hurts 
> my eye that is, not the door, I don't know how the door feels.
> 
> 
> One thing I used to do but forgot is when I approach a door like that to 
> have my hand shield my upper body or something so the door would hit my 
> hand first of course.
> 
> 
> Anyway, I hope everyone's doing great.
> 
> 
> Warmest regards,
> Dan and the wonderful, masterful, lovable Parker Pup
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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/tami%40poodlemutt.com