[nagdu] Why, or why not?

[Tracy Carcione]

Hi Daniel.
I'm sorry having a dog hasn't been working out for you.
I've had 7 dogs now, though it's hard to remember specific problems with the
older ones.  It's the old, polished dog I remember best.
But I can tell you the annoyances I'm having with the new pup.  He's young,
and loves to pick up things.  If things are not on the floor, he will jump
on a chair to reach what he wants, even though he has lots of toys on the
floor.  He is slowly growing out of this, but still needs a lot of
supervision, more than any dog I've ever had, pet or guide.
At the end of class, he suddenly realized I wasn't very effective at
stopping him scavenging, and now he tries it at nearly every opportunity.  I
am constantly either catching him in a dive or taking something out of his
mouth.  I have become familiar with the location of the restroom in several
popular destinations, just so I can wash dog spit off my hands.  I hope that
I will over time be able to stop or greatly diminish his scavenging
attempts, but it will take a while, and I may always have to deal with it to
some degree.
He has an annoying habit of creeeeeeping up on some things, like curbs or
steps.  Again, I'm working on it, and it's getting better, but, meantime,
I'm sure it makes me look utterly ridiculous to anyone watching.

The new pup doesn't shed much, except for a few days this spring.  Even
then, he was well-groomed in a few minutes.  If it's a concern, you could
ask for a dog who doesn't shed a lot.  My labs have been fairly
low-shedders.
HTH, and good luck with whatever you decide.
Tracy

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of daniel via nagdu
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 12:05 PM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Cc: daniel
Subject: [nagdu] Why, or why not?

Hey guys, I haven't posted to the list in a while mainly because I don't
have my dog anymore; she was terrified of cars and couldn't do work properly
because of it. I know this is going to come off a bit negatively but I don't
mean it that way: I feel as if, guide dog users we have a tendency to extol
the greatness of using a guide dog, we always say how amazing it is and
wonderful having one by our side is but I feel that the cons aren't ever
really discussed. I retired my dog roughly a year ago and, at the time, it
was pretty tramatic (I literally cried for like an hour at a time). I'm now
really contemplating going back to The Seeing Eye again and am really
honestly wondering what kind of cons or negative things yall have ran into
while using a dog? I know there is a huuuge range of people from just
starting out to have had a dog for the past 20 years so I feel like I can
get some really good feedback. I know one for me was (and this may sound odd
or vain) was excessive shedding. I could brush and comb Irene for 30-45
minutes every evening and morning and yet, every time I got in a car there
would be fur everywhere and when I vacuumed I could've probably made a
pillow every time. I have literally never in my life seen a dog shed as much
as that and am quite frankly not sure where all the fur came from off a 45
pound dog. However, I think I could deal with it again if I were to get
another guide dog; I would just have to get even better at managing. I have
a few others but I'm wondering what are some for yall?

Again, I really am not trying to be negative just really trying to get the
whole story.again. 

I'm also (obviously) trying to decide if I want to go back again (that's a
whole other post though, I think). I'm also not really trying to say (nor do
I want yet another debate) that canes are better than dogs or vice versa.

Thanks,

Dan.

 

P.s: This is a sort of spinoff from "would I ever give up having a dog?" 

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