[NAGDU] the open door policy

Miranda knownoflove at gmail.com
Tue Oct 10 18:06:57 UTC 2017


I think this is great advice. One thing that I try to do when Andy and Alec are approaching a door and I am walking ahead of them is to hold the door long enough for Andy to find it, and I will say something like, "door on the right going in (facing you)", or "door on the left facing out (away from you)." If people are familiar enough with the team, they can do this. We have found it helpful, and our close friends are getting used to it and now also asking people to not hold the door.


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> On Oct 10, 2017, at 1:24 PM, Andy B. via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> We get it at church all the time. After getting clipped at school, Alec is somewhat reserved at running up to a door. In fact, he went through a period of time where he would bolt through the door, especially one we had to roll through. It almost landed me on my face on the floor a few times. Normally, he stops about 5 feet from the door and asks me to slowly walk him up to it. However, people open doors at church all the time. In most cases, he over/under estimated the opening and bumped my shoulder on the center frame. Now we tell people that open doors to let it go because it can hurt the dog and/or handler. If they ask how that is possible, we usually tell them to watch us get through the door and it will be evident. Aside from this, no advice here.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tami Jarvis via NAGDU
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2017 1:13 PM
> To: Dan Weiner via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Tami Jarvis <tami at poodlemutt.com>
> Subject: Re: [NAGDU] the open door policy
> 
> 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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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