[NAGDU] guide dog classes and the totally blind

[Sandra Johnson]

Good Morning Dan:

I have been a guide dog user for 43 years.  On all my classes there were 
some people with some, and sometimes a lot of vision.  On some classes I was 
the only totally blind student.  I have had trainers tell me that they do 
not waste their good dogs on those with a lot of usable vision.  I cannot 
say if that is true or the opinion of most instructors but I have heard it 
several times from several schools.  All of us have to work with our new 
guides once we get them home.  I do not really know if the dog realizes if 
we can see some or not.  However, I do know that if someone with some sight 
is always doing the guiding the dog can get sloppy because the handler is 
always making the decisions for the dog.  Some schools will use blindfolds 
with people who have a lot of vision.  I have been told by many classmates 
that they were shocked at how much the dog did for them when they could not 
use their vision.  A trainer once told me it takes them four to six months 
to train a guide dog and only weeks of poor handling to ruin the dog. 
Again, I do not know how often this happens but according to this one 
instructor he had seen it happen many times.  I think that anyone, 
especially those with some vision, needs to evaluate whether or not they 
really can and will make proper use of a guide dog.  I have certainly known 
of many guide dogs that have become more of a pet once they are home with 
their handler.  As a whole totally blind people are only about one percent 
of the blind population so the odds are that on a guide dog class or any 
other training for the blind we will always be in the minority.  I hope this 
helps your curiosity. .

Sandra
SLJohnson25 at comcast.net
-----Original Message----- 
From: Dan Weiner via NAGDU
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2018 4:01 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Dan Weiner
Subject: [NAGDU] guide dog classes and the totally blind

Hello, beautiful people.

I'm curious about something, A GDB grad told me that most of their
clients now have some residual vision.

So here' s my question, is that true for all guide dog programs? And,
are there any programs where most of the class participants are totally
blind, or is this across the board.

This is total curiosity and not meant as a value judgment, criticism of
any program or anything else. I, myself am totally blind.


In all of my classes there wee people with residual vision so maybe it
is indeed the way it is.


Enjoy a wonderful morning, guys.


Dan and the Parker Nut



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