[nfb-talk] Miniature guide horse opens door for blind student

[Cindy Handel]

This article never said the student was trained to use the guide horse. It 
talked about the year of training the horse received.  But, I wonder how 
safe this woman is with the horse, if she had no training with it.

Cindy
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ckrugman at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFB Talk" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 2:31 AM
Subject: [nfb-talk] Miniature guide horse opens door for blind student




Does anyone have any comments on the use of guide horses as discussed in 
this article?
Chuck

Miniature guide horse opens doors for blind student
Tiny companion helps Muslim woman live independently, attend university
11/15/2010
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40195834/

For Mona Ramouni, who's blind, using a guide dog was just not possible. From 
an observant Muslim family, Ramouni's parents objected to having a dog in 
the house.

For most of her life the 28-year-old got around with the help of her family 
and friends. But those days are over, and Ramouni has a new companion to 
help navigate her way: Cali the guide horse.
The graduate student bought Cali two years ago, and sent her for training to 
learn to become a guide horse. She paid for the horse, its care and training 
from her savings work as an editor of Braille books.

Pampered pooches

The Fetch Club boasts a canine restaurant, movie theater, spa, wet bar, 
photo studio and even a doggie disco.

Guide horse opens doors for blind student

"My whole world and my whole outlook on stuff has changed, because I feel 
that there are a lot more possibilities," Ramouni told the news service AFP 
in July 2009, six weeks after Cali arrived. "Before Cali, I didn't feel like 
I could go places on my own, although theoretically I probably could have."

Guide dogs are believed to have been leading the way for blind people for 
centuries, while guide horses are a more recent phenomenon. The Guide Horse 
Foundation has been training miniature horses as companions for the blind 
for nearly 11 years. There has been such demand for guide horses that the 
organization, which is run solely by volunteers, has had to suspend the 
application process.

Mira Oberman / AFP - Getty Images

Graduate student Mona Ramouni, left, and her guide horse Cali wait for class 
to start with classmate Cheryl Wade and her guide dog.
It takes about a year to train a guide horse, and the animals have a longer 
lifespan than guide dogs. Miniature horses can live to be more than 50 years 
old and weigh around 100 pounds.

"Taking on a horse as a guide is a huge commitment, same as a dog but with 
more physical needs," said Dolores Arste, Cali's trainer, to the Associated 
Press last year. "It is not a novelty. It is a real working animal."

Taking care of Cali is definitely different than caring for a guide dog. The 
diet of a guide horse consists mostly of grass or hay and oats, according to 
the Guide Horse Foundation, and the animals can graze on the lawn of 
someone's house.

Since Ramouni and Cali have joined forces, she has been able to move from 
her native Dearborn, Mich. to Lansing, where she is working toward a 
master's degree at Michigan State University.

Cali and Ramouni attend classes together, where they are sometimes joined by 
the guide dog of another student.

"We've had some adventures," Ramouni told the AFP. "If she thinks she can do 
it, she will. If she thinks she can't or doesn't want to, I swear she's half 
mule because she'll just stand there."

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