Category: Animal House
Why did you make the decision to get a guide dog?
I suppose I just don't understand the appeal of guide dogs. I never have, really. But it seems like almost every blind person I know has or wants a guide dog these days. Why?
I'm not trying to bring up topics and discussions long since beaten to death, and I'm not trying to start any sort of lengthy debate between people who choose to use dogs and people who don't. Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm missing something. For those of you who use dogs or really want them, what's your reason? Are their social benefits having a dog has afforded you? Do you simply like the companionship and the bond that forms between animal and handler? Deep down, do you think the dog does or will make you a better/more graceful traveler than some white stick? Do you feel more confident and secure with a dog? Or was their an experience in your childhood that left you wanting a guide dog?
I've never really wanted a dog. I'm happy picking up my cane and going where I want. I think canes are simpler, easier, and yes, far more reliable and safe than an animal. In short, I just don't understand the widespread appeal of guide dogs. Still, I here people talk about how confident they are with their dogs. If you read testimonials on guide dog school websites and email lists, you get the feeling that the dog has revolutionized or changed the way they travel, feel about themselves and interact with the world. Why? Does the decision really come down to personal choice? Or, is there really some sort of deeper difference that I just don't know about?
Brice
It's not a choice as to I want a dog for this, or this. There are many factors that can play a part, for example with me I want a dog not only to help improve my mobility but because it'd be extremely helpful in countering my hearing disability. Right now I have a very hard time telling street crossings or avoiding people, a dog can help with that a lot.
I got a guide dog so I could be more independant. It wasn't appealing to be but a need. I feel more confident leaving my home with my dog than my cane. I was never a good cane traveler but I am a good dog handler and and a dog just works better for me.
But why? I genuinely don't understand these types of responses. I've been told that dogs can't read traffic, can't make decisions for you and that the handler has to have good skills or the partnership won't work. So if this is all true, why do you feel more confident and independent traveling with a dog than a cane? Does the dog feel more like a human guide to you, and thus it makes you feel more secure because you're traveling with another living being? If the dog is just a tool you prefer for whatever reason because everyone has different preferences, that's cool. But how exactly does a dog "make you feel more independent?" Sorry. I'm not trying to judge or criticize someone because they feel a certain way at all. I just ... really don't get it.
There are things a dog can do that a cane cannot. I love being able to tell my dog to find a bench, and have her find it, or find the door and have her go to it. A dog is more exact, has a longer range, and is more responsive than a cane. A cane can do nothing more than tell you what is in front of you, a dog can tell you what is far to your left, to your right, even behind you in some cases.
Now it is true that the dog can't read traffic, and you still have to know when to go, but a dog will disobey you if it is unsafe. A cane can't do that. A dog, therefore, has safety defaults that a cane does not have. A cane will only keep you as safe as you keep yourself.
In addition to that, the dog can navigate complex routes easily. For example on my college campus, there is a convergance of sidewalks which branches in eight different directions. With a cane, even a bit of an angle difference and you will be sent off along a sidewalk that you never intended to go down, and there are no landmarks to differentiate them. A dog will simply lead you down the one you've taken before.
Those are just a few of my reasons for preferring the dog. Does that clear up some of your confusion?
Exactly. Silver stated it better than I would have. I myself don't have a guide dog, though I confess this is really only because I don't consider myself financially able to care for one at the moment, being unemployed and on SSI alone. I wouldn't want to bring a dog home only to discover I couldn't afford food and things. Granted I have heard there are ways of getting help with that and that the schools will assist with major vet bills and things like that. But there's also the fact that while I consider myself a reasonable cane traveler I'm probably not up to the standards expected by most guide dog schools. This is further complicated by the fact that I dislike the general clunkiness of cane travel and that probably shows in the way I use the damn thing. LOL. About the only thing I can say in my cane's defense is that it can be folded and put away when not in use. By the same token though a guide dog can become a welcome companion even when off duty. Not only that but even the most confident cane traveler doesn't get quite the same positive attention that a guide dog user tends to receive. I've talked to a lot of guide dog handlers and cane users over the years and one thing I've heard the former group agree on is that they have far fewer problems when asking for directions. Often as a cane user I've asked for directions someplace only to have the perso grab my arm and try to pull me along and sometimes they do so even without me even asking for assistance. They seem far less likely to do that with a guide dog handler.
I got a dog because when I was learning to use a cane, I absolutely could not walk straight across a street and it freaked me out. My mobility instructor actually gave up any hope of teaching me to walk straight and told me to get a dog, so I did. I have since worked with a different instructor (an NFB trained instructor who uses structured discovery) and he had me crossing straight in one afternoon. There are things about dogs that make traveling a little smoother and you do feel a little more graceful than with a cane. For instance, they just take you around obstacles instead of bouncing off things with a cane. So, if I'm walking down a sidewalk and there's a trash can or tree limb or some other kind of stuff in the way, the dog simply goes around it whereas with a cane, you have to hit it with your cane and figure out a way around it. The dog in this instance is faster and more efficient than the cane. The intellegent disobedience is a nice safety valve to have as well and helps people who may lack confidence in their street crossings. You still have to know how and when to cross, but it's nice to know if you screw up or a car runs a light, your dog will ignore the command to go and prevent a mistake. The public is more willing to talk to you with a dog as well. This is actually something I don't like, but I think some dog handlers do enjoy the social benefits of a dog over a cane. I however, am quite tired of hearing about other peoples' pet dogs and how they look like my dog and would probably make a good guide too. I'm on my first dog and honestly, I've come to the conclusion that the benefits of a dog don't outweigh the negatives so when my girl retires, I'm going to stick with a cane. Aside from annoying public interactions, I find it harder to keep my orientation and learn new environments with a dog than a cane. I miss the tactile feedback with the cane that helps me find landmarks and things to keep me oriented. A dog will just walk past something that I might find useful as a landmark. And there is the timespent on grooming and relieving. I actually don't mind that but, there are times when it's really inconvenient and I think it would be nice to just throw my cane in the corner and not have to worry about my dog, particularly when I'm traveling and staying in hotels. Having to hunt down grass gets frustrating at times and my dog is a drama queen about where she does her business making it even harder to take care of that little task while traveling. Anyway, I get why people prefer dogs and I think they're great but I've come to realise that it's not really for me. It really is just a personal preference and how you like to travel and a little confidence booster as well. But dogs are not some miracle answer that will make a poor cane traveler into a great traveler. You still have to have decent mobility skills to successfully use a dog. And don't mistake my comments about my dog for lack of love or concern for her well being. I love her to death and am bonded to her in a way that is much deeper and stronger than I have ever experienced with any other animal. I work her and provide her with the best care. I have just come to the conclusion that the guide dog lifestyle doesn't suit me personally. It is not the fault of my dog or school. It's just my own preference.
I really, really, really, love what the last poster said. although I'm not a guide dog handler myself, I respect her perspective, and I, too, prefer my cane over a dog.
I've had experience walking with a guide dog, and I felt that it took away a lot of valuable clues I'm able to receive with a cane. I didn't like that, at all.
Perhaps I am not one who should be answering you, because I did have a dog for awhile and gave it up in favor of my cane. I ultimately feel I am a better and more confident traveler with my cane than I was with my dog. that goes against the grain of all the overblown guide dog school testimonials, but for me it's the truth. However, I will say this. There is a fluidity you get with guide dog travel you don't get with a cane. You do just go around obstacles instead of touching them, you do just give directions to the dog, etc. There is also a speed in it. I'm a pretty fast walker, compared to most cane users I know, but my friends who use dogs can still outdistance me. I do miss the more fluid travel and the added speed, and I loved my dog dearly. However, for me the cons outweighed those pros.
I'd feel totally weird without a cane. I know this already.
I don't necesarraly share all the prospectives with the last few posters, but can certainly appreciate each point of view. I personally love working a guide, and have worked three. However, with my current job, and schedule, it just is not possible intigrating a dog guide in to daily life!
Just to add to some of the opinions above that are pro guide dog, Another major advantage I found of having a guide was his or her familiarity with places I freequented. For example, there was a certain hole in the wall breakfast joint I always appreciated eating at. The funny thing is when I say hole in the wall, I kind of mean it, it was a very tucked away door between two other very busy shops in a down town area, and so getting there the few times I did it without a cane was horrible. From actually quickly finding the door, to navigating through drones of people to the booth I always sat in was not nearly as natural or graceful with a cane. The interesting fact was years after finishing college, and moving to a new town on a weekend visit, walking down the 14 block of euclid ave, my guide who hadn't been in this place in 5 years, offered me that door that in yester year we used to always go! This to me was one of the overwhelming aspects of what made a guide such a useful resource. Now, to some this probably sounds lazy, or what not, but I can attest that navigating a big city was a breeze with a guide. I was willing to deal with the various cons that a dog guide had at that point to have seamless intigration in to a big city life style!
I suppose also, it depends on what type of travel you're doing on a daily bases as to whether or not a dog could make any sort of difference in your life. As stated above, my current schedule has me traveling by car several hours weekly and working with folks in there homes and/or business, this would not be an ideal life style for me or for that matter for the dog. SO, agree with most above it's not a one size fits all approach but, I find valuable aspects of both means of travel.
I had two or three experiences of walking with guide dogs prior to choosing to get one of my own. Before last February, I was not a dog person, and I did not believe I would enjoy grooming, cleaning up after, and playing with a dog. A couple different mobility instructors had recommended that I get a dog because of my veering while crossing roads. I constantly veered to the right, and if parallel traffic was over that way, I simply veered to the left. I had to concentrate hard on perfectly locating the opposite sidewalk when crossing streets. But there were many times where I veered too far in one direction or the other.
Another reason I got a dog was because I hated traveling through deep snow with a cane. Sometimes, the snow got too deep for me to find certain paths and driveways, and in places where snow was not cleared, I could not find the sidewalk.
Also, I hated making my way through heavily furnished or crowded rooms/areas. I did not like hitting something with my cane, then having to find my way around it.
My dog solves all of these problems for me, and if I ever need him to locate a counter, chair, door, or trash can, he does it for me no problem. I had to put in extra work with my dog when the snow piled down because at first, he had difficulty finding driveways and stopping at some curbs. But After a day or two of hard work, he had no problem locating the paths and curbs I needed.
Another benefit of having a dog for me is working smoothly through areas that are overwhelmingly loud and noisy. As a cane traveler, I was very hesitant and became overwhelmed working in loud shopping centers, and walking through other noisy areas.
I am also annoyed by other people's stories about their pets and other dogs they know, but I knew that would come with getting a guide dog. Maybe I don't allow it to get to me as much. I'm not the most polite person, so if anyone tries to pull me over or interrupt me walking some place by talking about doggy stuff, I simply ignore them and carry on about my business most of the time.
I don't feel that the grooming or relieving of my dog is an inconvenience. I try my best to make time for things like that, and I feel like the upkeep and relieving of my dog is no more of a hassle than caring for myself. We are a team, and we both need to stay clean and healthy to take care of each other.
Blah, blah, blah, CoomBaYah. Well-trained and cared for dogs make the world a better place.
I know all about veering during street crossings. Tat is an unfortunate tedency of mine and while i have tried to work on it over the years I do still do it. Granted more often than not when I do veer I at least do so in the right direction (away from oncoming cars in other words), but I have occasionally done just the opposite, though how I lived to talk about it I'm not sure. LOL. My problem is that my feet don't always seem to point in the same direction when I get up to the curb and the foot that first steps off the curb is usually the one that leads. LOL. So regardless of which way the cane points I tend to go with the feet.
Thanks, everyone. I can't say any of this has changed my mind about anything, but that wasn't the point of the topic. I've learned a lot of useful information and I certainly get a feel for where many of you are coming from now. I appreciate the time you took to help me understand.
I, too, appreciate hearing different perspectives, even though my stance hasn't changed.
I always used a cane, for the longest time incorrectly. It screwed me over more times than not, because the cane was not long enough and I had no steady technique. Up until I started using a different cane I wanted to get a guide dog ASAP. I believed that I would be safer with a dog. Just goes to show how a slight change in things can change your mind. I'm comfortable using my cane, but I would like to have a chance to experience traveling with a guide dog.
I don't know if this matters but I lost my site as an adult and I always looked drunk trying to use a cane and felt embarrased in public. My dog gives me better balance and I love when i go in a rest room I can just say toilet and he will take me to a stall. When I come out I say sink and he takes me to the sink. With a cane I just ran into anything until I found a stall and it made me feel stupid and clumsy. It is just matter of opinion, neither one is wrong or right, it is just what works for you.
Guide dogs definitely aren't for everyone. And for all I know I might discover this to be true of me as well. But I'd definitely like to at least experience what it feels like to walk with an actual dog instead of just a Juno harness.
Ok, so here's the deal. If you want to avoid obsticles: not fall down stairs, not trip over recycle bins in the middle of the sidewalk, not run face first into people standing in the middle of the hallway, keep from running into half open doors, etc, then both a cane and a guide dog will get the job done. Your cane will offend more people on average by tripping them up or smacking their feet, strollers, wheelchairs, rolling luggage, etc. And your guide dog will occationally offend someone in a bigger, but less frequent way by giving them the look of death to get them out of the way or goosing them with a cold wet nose in a crowd. Your cane will much more frequently bring unwanted attention to you by tapping noisily along tile flors, echoing in large spaces, clanging into metal waste paper baskets or smacking into walls, and your guide dog will bring unwanted or negative attention to you in a much bigger, but extremely rare way when they are truly ill and despite good training have an accident because they honestly can't help it. A cane makes one a more independent traveler than someone who walks everywhere with someone else using sighted guide, but a dog honestly does make you more independent, in 98% of cases than a cane traveler. Here's why. Trafic, I don't care how great of a cane traveler you are, that cane can not see trafic, it can not judge trafic, it can not react to trafic, and it can't help you if someone disobeys a trafic law, is drunk driving, is high behind the wheel, is texting while driving, etc, or if they are driving normally, but they are in a silent electric or highbrid car or you misjudge the trafic. We all, cane users and guide dog users alike misjudge trafic, it happens and is not a mark of our intelligence, compitance or worth as people, it is just a fact. But, if you as a guide dog user misjudge the trafic, you are not going to become road pizza. Also, when people suddenly open doors into our path, back out of a driveway without looking, round a blind corner while driving or walking, etc, a guide dog can respond to this, and the cane traveler is caught off guard and often injured. If you have a good sense of direction and good hearing then you can hear trafic just fine, but cars coming from a long way away are almost impossible to judge: their speed, which lane they are in and where their trejectery will intersect with yours. A dog can do this extremely accurately for cars traveling under 30 miles an hour and with some accuracy, certainly more than you or I, cars traveling over 30 miles an hour. Now a wonderful traveler who is a cane user is less likely to get hit than an abismilly incompitant guide dog user who can't judge trafic for shit, simply because their constantly being wrong will overwhelm or untrain their guide dog. But generally speaking a traveler ranging from slightly below average, to average to well above average is hundreds of times more likely to get hit or injured with a cane than with a guide dog. Also, guide dogs deal with inamalies. For instance have you ever been in a situation where you had to step up one step, and then your next step was a step down like when you step onto and then over the edge of a patch of grass in a parking lot or one of those parking deviders? Ok, you misjudge that and you're lible to twist an anckle or to fall flat on your face. Let me take it a step further. I have seen those where you take a step up, as if onto a curb, then your next step is down, and it is the first in a series of steps in a flight of stairs down. If you misjudge this as a cane traveler you are probably going to break a limb or your neck. If you have a guide dog it will act hesitant, as this is a strange situation, and will cause you to be more cautious, than simply stepping up onto what you assume is a curb. The dog can't tell you what's up, but they can act strangely, very hesitant, prompting you to take a good look at what's before you. Falling down isn't fun, breaking a limb hurts like hell and could cause you to lose weeks of work or lose a semester of courses, but if you are pregnant and miscarry or you are carrying or wearing an infant and they die or are badly injured, that's devistating. Well worth having the shedding, druling, occasionally annoying dog, don't you think? A guide dog also can do overhead clearances. Dogs vary in their reliability from maybe 30 percent to 99 percent reliable, and you can request a dog especially good at this, or work with a current dog to sharpen or maintain this skill. If you have a retna that has been repaired after detachment or some other condition where the eyes and the head are very sensative to trauma, having a dog could be the difference between you maintaining your partial vision for many more months, years or even decades and losing it in a heartbeat because your cane obviously can't tell you about an upcoming tree branch. Also, guide dogs deal with the unknown situations that are un forseeable and that a cane could never help with. Now, before I list some of them, I am aware that these are rare, but if you add them all up and take into account all those I'm not aware of that can and do happen on a daily basis to guide dog handlers then you will get the idea, that it is a real and meaningful benifit: A guide dog refused to proceed down a sidewalk and when she returned home and asked a sighted person to clarify things they told her an alegator was laying across the sidewalk. Guide dogs have stopped on forest paths to avoid wild cats, bears, rabid animals and poisonous snakes. Guide dogs have refused to pass alleys where it was discovered muggers, rapests or cereal killers had been lerking. Guide dogs have refused to go near downed power lines, open man hole covers, near broken gas lines, burning buildings, and undetinated explosive devices. Let me give some personal ones. I was walking in the road, as the sidewalks were not plowed in our neighborhood, early in the morning, going to the bus stop. I was in highschool at the time, and I heard a vehicle behind me. I was visible to a car and cars drive slowly and move around those walking in the street. I was on the left side and this car would have been on the right, and I could hear it was moving fairly slowly. My guide dog sped up, then changed dirrection and started scrabbling up the snow bank. When I corrected her and was staying behind, she grabbed me and pulled on my sleeve. I followed her and had just clambered atop the head high snow bank when a huge snow plow passed by us. It took up the whole road and never would have seen us, as the cab is very high up, sort of how small children in front of a school bus can't be seen by the driver. My mom's guide dog stopped dead once and refused to move. It body blocked her and pushed her backwards. A construction worker told her "Lady, you need to back up really carefully, because there's a 10 story drop right in front of your feet." Being that high up a cane user leaning forward to inspect withh their cane could have easily fallen to their death. One time I was standing at the bus stop using my iPhone to check bus schedule times. I heard something coming, but thought nothing of it, I assumed it was a loud truck or car on the street. My guide dog pulled me into the street, and wouldn't let me go back on the sidewalk. We were right in the gutter at the edge of the street, and there was a red light. Then a jiant sidewalk cleaning machine went by, complete with sharp spinning metal brushes and scalding hot water. The guy didn't see me because it was just getting light out, and had I been a cane user, I would've been killed or mamed. Once when my son wandered away from me I was able to run after him through a crowded place full of obsticles, because of my guide dog. Had I only a cane I never would have caught up to him before he got out of the building. I know a severely allergic handler who could die if stung by jjust one bea. Her guide took her out into the street...
around a tree with a very large hive of really agressive beas that had to be removed by a professional as they kept swarming and attacking people in the neighborhood. Let's move on. Ok, so additional commands. Many guide dogs can be trained to fetch dropped items, a great help if you have balance issues, back problems or you just hate groping around on a dirty floor for something with your butt sticking up in the air while people pass by and watch the blind person, pun totally intended, blindly circling around on the floor looking for something. Guide dogs can be trained to find specific places, with targeting techniques and can learn specific routes, which is very handy when rooms don't have proper room numbers, clear large print or raised print or braille signage, or there are a bunch of doors right in a row. If you get disoriented which happens to the best of us, you can let a guide dog have its head and just ask them to "find the way" "figure it out" or "Let's go to such and such" and they'll get the team back on track. A guide dog can let you walk comfortably in a group of friends without them needing to stay out of your way to avoid being cane slapped, and without you needing to be lead by one of them. A guide dog can be trained to find or follow someone specifically. For instance, my guide can find my son in a loud, crowded place if I lose verbal contact with him. A guide dog can also be taught to find different things: an empty seat, a door outside, the stairs, an escelator, an elevator, a counter, a trash can, other land marks, a light control pole, or even your family's car in the parking lot. No cane can do any of that. Also, its handy because a guide doesn't just pick up on things in sight, sometimes if you don't even know which way the door outside is in a large department store, if you just ask the dog to "find outside" they will find it. Maybe they smell outside, feel a draft of air from the door opening and closing, are watching the movement of other people or just remember where the door is, whatever reason, it is very handy. A guide might find an escelator because they can hear it a long way off. They just make you more elligant and graceful when they can take you strait to an empty seat, right up to a counter or right to a door the first time in a large glass wall of windows where the partially sighted person can't see the door clearly in that landscape of glass. A guide dog also helps you explore. You can just randomly head out and decide to see what businesses are around your work where you might pass some time or get a bite to eat during your lunch break, and your dog will take you smoothely to different places asking you if this or that one might be right. Having a reliable guide means you can give up some of your auditory feedback and wear a hood or a hat in the winter and not get frost bitten ears, just taking it off to judge trafic. It means you can carry your hot coffee through a crowd and not worry about banging into someone and burning you both. It means you can give a bit of your attention to a cell phone conversation or munching a sandwich while you eat on the run on the way to class if you really have to, without weaving all over the side walk and bumping into things. In a crowded college hallway where people stand everywhere and intermittant benches, tables, students and garbage cans line the walls, you can move quickly down the center of the hallway, only moving to the side when you're at the correct classroom, rather than try to trail with a cane and touching or bumping into everything along the wall while looking for the right room number. If you are running along the line up trying to find the right bus before they all pull out, a dog makes the difference between making or missing that bus. In a pool room I can walk confidently between the two deep ends of two large pools on a narrow piece of tile floor without being apprehensive of falling into one of them, and without walking at a snails pace to avoid falling in. I have been able to chase down a cab that didn't want to transport me, catch up with it, run alongside, wrench the door open, have my dog jump in, then I jumped in and insisted they serve me and not break the law. I once chased a mugger who stole my purse and caught up with them and they dropped the purse, afraid of my german shepherd and the scene we were creating. I have chased the city bus and the school bus, taking shortcuts to head it off and get on when I missed it by just a minute or two. I have been able to virtually sneek unobtrusively into a class late or into the back of a rehearsal, something I never could have done with a cane and a room full of desks, people, back packs, instruments, music stands, chairs and scenery. Having a guide dog allows you to be the one in charge, the helper, the mentor. I know my environment well and often give directions to sighted people, but with a cane they are less inclined to trust my directions or they head off on their own, as my pace with a dog is much faster than the cane, and they don't want to poke along behind a cane user. With my dog I've lead orientation tours of sighted people, been a mentor and taken people places and helped friends who were cane or dog users to become familiar with my environment. Another thing. If your guide dog screws up, who looks dumb? Well, either you both, as a team look a little dumb, sharing some of the embarrassment, or more often, the dog looks dumb. Now, I'm not implying we should be unfair or unkind to our dogs, but it does help our public image if our dog gets confused and shows us a window instead of a door, or a low table instead of a chair, then if we are groping along the window looking for the door or if we accidentally sit on a table instead of a bench. It's one of those public perception things. Let me give you some more examples. I make sure all of my dogs can take purely visual hand signals and once when a totally creepy blind guy, a cane user wouldn't leave me alone, I just snuck away at top speed and was free. Had I had my cane I never would have been able to get away as fast or as silently. Here's another. Now, I'm not saying its right, or fair, but it is totally true. The public percieves guide dog users as more compitant, independent and accomplished than cane users. I am not saying that they are more accomplished/better/superior. There are a lot of guide dog users that are way better travelers than cane users, and a lot of cane users who are way better travelers than many guide dog users, it all depends on the person. But fair or not, this is how we are seen, and if that perception gets us more successful job interviews, more dates, more networking opertunities in our professional and personal lives, fewer harassments from CPS about our kids, etc, then it is worth it. Other travel opertunities. Ok, so some things you do with a dog, you simply can not do with a cane, no debate, you just can't. Hiking in rugged turain is not possible with a cane. You can hike complicated dangerous trails with a dog, with the dog finding the blazes on the trees that mark the trail. You can take a short cut across a wide open field and your dog can take you strait from point A to point B, whereas you'd wander a long time with a cane, even a cane and a cumpus. If I set down my coat and backpack I've trained my dog to "find our stuff" when we return from the bathroom or moving about the room to interact with others. Many blind people living on farms, enjoying camping, or living in extremely rural areas are only able to travel independently because of their dogs. Now, let's talk about snow? Guide dogs can look at land marks and figure out where the path is even if it's barried in two feet of snow, whereas a cane wouldn't and the muffling effect of the snow can get the blind traveler lost. There is a lot more, but these are all of the major points I could come up with on short notice. Please ask questions & I'll answer them.
Here's a question I hadn't thought of until just now. On average how long would you say a guide dog can stay in service before it would be best for the dog to retire? I know time itself isn't a reason, just wondering in general really.
Usually seven years give or take. My guide dog lasted five years, but she had a tumor, it wasn't due to any of her duties. All things going well and perfect, they might get eight or nine. Ten is pushing it.
The appeal was definitely well made by SensuallyNaturallyLiving4Today. What a great long list of the attributes that makes a guide dog worthwhile.
Now here is my take on this though I've hinted at it on other places.
From what I understand, dogs being highly emotional and dependent creatures really need someone who will bond with and play with them constantly fulfilling their emotional types of needs.
Fair is fair: that's the only reward they really get out of the deal, and it seems to be hard work for them. Anyway I have long since decided against it for the reason that I don't really bond very well with animals, not like I have seen people do. I'm not saying I dislike animals. I've walked the sister-in-law's pup when it needed it, I've even raised birds, my favorite being canaries.
If I had a dog, it would be properly cared for, yes. It would get all its needs met, and I'd like to think I would be a reasonable kind handler, but their real reward comes from a tight bond situation, so they would probably feel they came up empty on the deal.
And, to be honest, now the daughter has moved out, I have no real intention of saddling myself with what amounts to as a 3-yar-old child.
Maybe I am wrong, I don't know. After all, I am not really a kid person, but for my own daughter things were, and still are, very different. For her and her friends I'd do anything, and of course when she was little I had her with me all the time. I'm just saying I think it's fair to consider the dog's situation ahead of time also, and in this case neither I would bond with the dog too well, nor does the wife particularly like dogs.
Hope this helps you in your consideration of the situation. Cody says 7 years. That is 7 years of commitment at least, if not longer, that that animal has the right to expect what little payment it gets, a emotional type bond.
Ok, let's see. The working life of a guide dog. Well the average age at which a puppy leaves its mother and goes to a puppy raising home is around 8 or 9 weeks, but some schools do this at 12 weeks. Most schools transition the dogs from their puppy raisers to the actual training center around 18 months of age. Some schools will do this between 12 and 14 months, but this is rare, and some slower to mature dogs might go at 18 to 24 months. Dogs train for an average of 6 months at a good school. Some have significantly shortened their training programs to 3 or 4 months, which I personally think speaks to a lowering of standards, but generally a dog spends 6 months in active training. This combine with the average age of entering the program means most dogs are around 24 months old when they are ready for placement. Then the dog's training is maintained while they wait to be placed either through home training, fairly rare, or in-class training, much more common. The dogs typically don't wait any longer than 8 or 9 months. Sometimes a dog will be placed very quickly if there is a good match for them, within a month or so of finishing training, and occasionally a dog might weight up to a year for a match, but they try to avoid this at all costs. They will home the dog with trainers or kennel staff if they have been in the kennel rotation for many months, to keep up their emotional health and their house behaviors. So the average dog issued to a student is between 2 and three years old, closest to 2.5 years old. These breeds, german shepherds, labradore or golden retrievers, boxers, smoothe coat collies, standard poodles, dobermins and a few other breeds typically live 10 to 16 years according to AKC and other statistics. However, with the extremely dilligent care in the breeding center, puppy raising homes, training center, & with the handler, + the extremely sound genetics of the dogs, guide dogs from reputable programs add another 2 to 5 years onto those averages, so 12 or 13 to 17 or 19 years of age. Of these years, most work actively until they are around 10, although some unforseen health problems can cause dogs to retire at 6 or 7 years of age, and some exceptional dogs work until they are over 16. It depends on the dog as well. Some dogs live to work, & the idea of stopping just because of a little joint pain is blasfimous to such dogs. They'll insist on working, if you let them until their last year of life, common in shepherds & poodles. Other dogs will let you know when they're done, by slowing down, losing enthousiasm for the work, and so on, typically the retrievers, but there are exceptions to these generalizations. So, taking into account that most dogs start working before age 3, and work until they are around 10 to 12 years old, that is about 8 to 10 years. Now, if the handler does not utalize heartworm prevention and flee and tick prevention monthly, get all required vaxinations, get annual check ups and feed a high quality food, and or, if the dog was a donated dog to one of the few programs that will accept such dogs, then the working life of the dog could go down by 2 to 4 years, making it around 4 to 8 years. You generally get out of a dog what you put in. Also, not allowing a dog to get fat helps keep their overall life and their working life long. Now, that's the active working life. There is the retirement working life which can be a period of light work, gentler work and less challenging working conditions, while the dog assists the handler while they are waiting for a successor dog. The intuitive handler can, when they first notice their dog slowing down, get their application in for their next dog, monitor their dog carefully and cut back on the work load and often avoid being without a serviceable guide at all. Unexpected illnesses or injuries obviously do not make this possible. Ok, so to Leo Guardian's thoughts. Erm, yes and no. Some dogs work mainly for the work and if you are not neglectful or abusive and have at least some part of your heart to give, they do just fine. Others, especially very soft dogs, need a super close bond. Most guide dog schools will match you with a dog that fits your needs. If they have a really sheltered, needy blind person without much of a life, who is an over the top animal lover, who thinks of pets as children, then they give them the insanely clingy, soft, gentle, needy dog, that wouldn't suit most students. If they have a very self reliant dog who loves to work and needs human companionship, but not a super close bond, then this dog would go to someone like Leo Guardian. Most people fall right in the middle of those two extremes, and most dogs do as well. I love my dog, but she deffinitly is not my furry child, or number 1 on my list. My son and husband come first, depending on which one of them needs me most in a given situation, then my dog after that. I set aside time for her, with daily brief grooming, weekly intense grooming, let her sleep on my bed, or near it, play withh her at least two or three times a week, and spend lots of time working her and teaching her new commands. She is one of those lives to work dogs. Some dogs work because they love the job, and if you are loving too, that is icing on the cake. Some dogs work for you, not disliking the job, but not loving it either, it is just a means to pleasing you. You also don't need a lot of continuous time for a guide if you are attentive. For instance, if you work them well and often, then you don't need to spend a lot of time playing fetch, or tug or running with them. If you are often busy giving your physical affection to others: wearing your baby, snuggling with your husband, caring for your children, having sex with your husband, hugging or rough housing with friends, then little things can do this for your dog such as allowing them to sleep on your bed with you, doing a 5 minute massage every day , or just stroking their ears while they ride the bus or subway with you. It is deffinitly not the degree of time or affection you need to give to a child or a spouse. Also, trust me, I've had a 3 year old child, and having a guide dog is not like having a 3 year old child. Mentally, dogs are about as smart as 3 to 5 year old humans, with problem solving skills above and beyond many preschoolers and common sense and instincts above and beyond many adults. For instance, a three year old still needs help with feeding them self, to an extent, cut up meat, pour drinks into glasses, supervise to avoid food fights or painting on the wall with food. The guide dog eats up their food and is done with it. The three year old needs a bed time ritual of tooth brushing, stories, glass of water, potty before bed, tuck them in, goodnight hugs and kisses, plug in night light, etc. Your dog will go to their bed or crate or your bed and pass out. If you want to sleep in, your guide will let you, your 3 year old will not. You do have to harness your dog, but far less hastle than picking out clothes for, helping dress, doing laundry for and packing extra changes of clothing for a 3 year old. Your guide can play unsupervised in a securely fenced, well picked up, dog proofed backyard. Leaving a 3 year old outside alone is neglegent and unwise. If you are out late you need to rush home to get 3 year old in bed, guide dog will go with the flow at the bar, the party, the business meeting, and just deal. Living with a guide dog is like living with a moderate functioning adult with mental retardation, or a highly intelligent autistic teenager or adult who is fairly independent, but needs assistance with some things and reminders about others. If I add up all the mess and chaos of 1 guide dog over its life with me, it equals maybe 1 month with a 3 year old. Now if you have a high drive dog, that requires more diciplin, then it can be like having a brilliant, ornery autistic 12 year old. You do not need a high drive dog though. I picked 1 cuz I'm nuts. *smile*
Wow you're really good at explaining all this.
Oh and great illustrations with the 3-year-old child. Been awhile over here, but well I might remember once you bring that stuff up, and it sure does sound like dogs have fewer requirements.
Thanks. Guide dogs/service dogs is a topic on my top 5 soap box list. Many blind people have guide dogs. Some see them as tools only, or an accessory, the first being a healthy attitude, the second one being a childish and wasteful attitude. Some see them as an intigral part of their lives and from time to time their interest in guide dogs in general, service dog legislation, politics of guide dog schools, best practice and inovative handler techniques, advancements in breeding, raising, training and utalizing guide dogs, waxes and wanes, this is the typical guide dog handler. They join and unsubscribe from, then resubscribe to guide dog list serves as their needs dictate, I.E. when their dog is about to retire, when considering utalizing a new training tool or method, when selecting a new guide dog training program, when coping with the death of a guide, or when experiencing a problem or challenge with their own dog, their particular school, a public access issue, etc. Then, there are guide dog geeks, people like me who maintain a constant interest in guide dogs, that ranges from moderate to high and could be classed as an on-going passion, hobby or field of interest/experteese. Some guide dog geeks are also blindness geeks, obsessed with all things blindness related, or disability right geeks, drawn in for the legal and sociological aspects, or they are animal/dog training geeks, those who have a wide ranging interest in working dogs of all sorts, human animal bonds and so on. My status as a guide dog geek shifts back and forth between the disability rights and the dog training aspects, but the overarching blindness interest has never been one of my tie-ins with guide dog interest as a lifelong, pervasive theme. This psychological and sociological framework sort of catagorizes and identifies the different sorts of guide dog users you typically meet at conventions, see on the zone, encounter on guide dog lists and forums, etc. You can usually tell the passing interest from the intense interest types by where they post. The passing interest types usually post only on mailing lists for their particular school, only participate in the NFB or ACB guide dog users chapter for their city or state, and usually only seek out, only recieve/read newsletters from their particular school, only friend their school on face book, or follow their school on twitter, and post on blindness only or guide dog only forums. The intense interest types tend to follow the list serves of schools other than their own, when possible, follow multiple schools on twitter, friend many schools on face book, read the newsletters from multiple schools, join the national chapters of their NFB or ACB guide dog users groups, follow issues that effect all types of service dogs, seek out and post on non blindness specific, and non guide dog specific forums on the internet as well. For instance, I search for guide dog related articles on all sorts of sites and correct mistakes, speak out against degrading or inaccurate information, spread education to the general public, publically decry the actions of inept or neglegent handlers or unacceptable program practices, contact authors of articles that are incorrect, and so on. The guide dog geek usually has ties to other related soap boxes as well, such as: raw feeding, home cooked dog food, service dog law, animal rights law, therapy animals, pet and working dog training techniques, wholistic veterinary care, anti-breed specific legislation, and so on. Even if I don't agree with every single thing they say or believe, I tend to seek out the guide dog geeks when I have a major concern, a serious problem or need advice or information on a new or hard to find body of knowledge. Guide dog geeks however, can be very annoying if you don't share their passion, so finding them, keeping the communication focused on your particular informational needs, then gracefully seperating from them, or from the guide dog related conversation with them is usually best, unless you really feel a burning desire to join them, otherwise they'll drive you crazy. *laughs*
I knew a girl here a few yearsback who was one of those with a definitely unhealthy attitude. She swore up and down that she wanted a guide dog up until she was actually accepted to the school and paired with the dog. She lasted at most two weeks before calling me to let me know she'd come home. She claims, although I have a really hard time believing this to be true since I've never! encountered a school that actually behaved this way, that they didn't tell her that the guide dog will, except in very special circumstances, be with her 24/7. She didn't like that fact. As I recall her exact words were "I don't want to be a babysitter for this dog." She also claimed that the training was "not what I expected." Needless to say whenI asked her what she did! expect, I failed to get a straight answer. Apparently she expected the dog to be able to go to Denny's or Sherry's and order off the menu whenever he or she got hungry.
Interesting write-up, Sensually. Well I'm still not believing this thing is for me, but never say never, I guess.
One aspect I notice nobody has talked about, and I don't know how guide dog users manage this: culling, or putting down, when the occasion calls for it.
This we tell people about when they go to raise birds. If it's hard to do for a bird who sings in a cage, it's got to be really difficult for a guide dog handler. Granted in the dog's situation the vet would do it, though hopefully it is equally quick. With birds we use helium and an airtight container because their metabolisms being what they are, they pretty well pass out in a second or so, and they're dead shortly thereafter. They can't smell, but even if they could, helium doesn't smell. Plus if it's dark in there, their photosensitivity makes them pretty well fall asleep anyway.
But I realize the vet does this for you with a dog, but the implications are still to be thought of: again if dispensing with an aging or injured bird is really difficult, how much harder to make that decision for an animal who's guided you. I'm a pretty stalwart individual but everyone has limits.
That is a very good point. Well, one thing I say to anyone thinking of a guide dog is bluntly "this dog has given its whole life to serving you, and you had better be able and prepared to do one of the following, in order of idealness A. keep the retired guide in your home, providing it a comfortable and happy life until it dies of natural causes or needs lidgitimately to be put to sleep. B. You have the skills and resources to find it a safe, loving and caring home upon its retirement if you live in a dorm or an apartment where it can not remain with you after retiring. This means you are able to find and rigerously screne candidates including references from their vets, breeders from which they've gotten dogs before or other animal orginizations they've dealt with before, and whichh does not mean putting your guide on craig's list, pet finder, or taking it to a shelter. or C. you have selected a school that is reputable and has a well established program for finding good homes for retired guides with thorrowly screned applicants, who provides this service upon request, for no additional charge, and with no strings attached, who does not resort to euthinasia as a default, but homes all dogs returned to the school." As to putting the dog down, this can be tough, but it depends on the situation. A dog who has had a long full life is easier to let go, & you can be there and hold your dog and stroke their head and tell them how wonderful and special and loved they are, while the pain slowly melts away and they drift off to sleep. Unlike birds they love you and feel your love for them and are comforted as they pass so you can truly feel that they are at peace. The neccessity of obtaining a successor dog can help ease the loss a great deal. Also, unlike the passing of a pet dog, you have options available to you that pet dog owners don't have. I.E. you can buy a comemerative stone in the walk at Seeing Eye for a beloved guide, you can post poems or heartfelt letters to guide dog lists specific to your school. Many schools have counsilors available by phone, or peere counsiling by other grads, or a counsilor on staff who can help you when you return for your next dog. Vets also tend to be more understanding for a service dog handler, and requests to cremate your dog alone and recieve ashes you know come from your dog and only your dog are honored more readily. If it brings you closure, many papers will carry obituaries for working dogs, guide, police, search and rescue, service, etc with more dignity and honor than those submitted by overemotional pet owners. I am not usually one for sappy email along sentaments, but I do love this one, it goes like this "Every time I say goodbye to a beloved guide dog a little part of my heart goes with them, and is replaced with a little piece of theirs. As I grow older and work with and love more guide dogs my heart becomes more and more that of a dog. Loving, accepting, nonjudging, open, trusting, selfless and joyful. May my heart be all dog by the time I die, so that my passing will be as peaceful and unafraid as theirs." And now I'm going to explain to my son why mommy is sniffling at the computer. But, I think that covers it.
I know. Some of my best friends are gide dog handlers and I've read their posts on Facebook when the time came to put their old guides down and eve been with a few of them during the time they were making that decision. It's hard enough having to put down a pet. I can only imagine how hard it would be to put down a working dog that'd been with you for years.
I do think birds love us, it's just different. Just sayin'.
interesting topic. For one, I did consider getting a guidedog for the longest time... but about 90% of the schools use labs and goldens, and I'm highly elergic to both... and even training with people who have them I'd still be elergic... I'm not a very good street crosser at all- nor am I very good cane traveler... I guess I'm not as bad as I'm making myself sound... but I'm also not very good at the whole telling when the traffic is okay to go at an intersection.... and+ I'm not to sure that I could do the upkeep of a dog at the moment, cause I'll be living in an apartment, and I'd rather not deal with the whole walking/etc/etc the dog... and+ you have to be a good traveler with your cane, and know where your going and most times I get disorented..... as we all do, but still... If one isn't good at crossing lighted intersections, there goes the guidedog idea lol... another reason I'm not even looking into getting one... Amber
I can see your mobility issues as kind of being a problem but as for the dog itself some schools are actually training more than labs and sheperds now, Pilot for example trains standard poodles. I do see where you are coming from with your other concerns though
True. And even though guide dogs are trained to disobey a command if it would put you in danger to obey, too much of that could undermine their training.
I'd like to bring up something which runs a little counter to some of the admittedly crazy-good things guide dogs do. I've seen this enough to know, too, and I know it depends on both the dog and the handler...but, to put it directly, a cane isn't going to be sick, go sniffing for food, chase a squirrel or otherwise throw a wrench. The worst thing it can possibly do is break, which is why you try and carry a spare if you can.
By their nature, dogs are emotional creatures, and have physical needs. They may be able to do many or even most of the things put forth in previous posts within this topic, but they can also do variants on what I just referenced as well. Personally, I'd rather take my heightened awareness of my immediate surroundings, dependence upon my own skills and lack of potential interference, but this is purely personal and is not in any way a criticism eith of guide dogs in general or of those who use them.
I should mention a little more while I'm at it, sorry for the double post.
First, whether we're talking about dependence on the cane or dependence on the dog, it's still dependence. Some of the situations outlined above, where you can talk on the phone while being mostly oblivious of your surroundings while your guide dog kind of gets you where you need to go...well, that's much less dangerous than, but otherwise a bit similar to, someone talking on a cell-phone while driving. I personally don't think it's a good idea to not be aware of where I'm going if I want to remain independent. If my dog is sick, gets distracted, gets confused, I will be in deeper water the less attention I pay.
As far as sitting on tables, bashing into trash cans, stepping up and then down and hurting yourself? Well, the last of those doesn't seem like much of an issue if you're doing what you ought to do with the cane; trash cans and other obstacles only present a problem if they're within a proper arc and you hit them, which gives you enough time to get out of the way. And as for sitting on a table instead of on a bench...well, it doesn't hurt to give a quick look before you seat yourself someplace. You avoid unpleasantness that way as a general rule.
Many, though not all, of the benefits of guide dog travel can be obtained by using a cane well, and at least with a cane you are not being led astray by another creature's admittedly imperfect view of things.
Another matter is convenience. I have seen someone take almost a minute to get off a train because they had to extricate their dog from under a narrow seat, get the harness properly in place and then disembark, whereas proximity to the door and awareness of the upcoming stop would've had me out that door in fifteen seconds flat. You sacrifice in footspeed, it's true, but you can definitely gain in other areas. No prep in the morning, no relieving, no feeding (which in Canada and the States will cost money), no hassles of any kind when you travel since no one objects to a cane that I've ever seen.
Lots of good, lots of not so good, but a cane is for me. I love dogs in general, I just don't want to work with one and trust travel to one when I've been taught as well as I have with a cane. I listen well, I move a little slower than a dog user, but I familiarize myself with routes religiously where necessary and I don't feel I'm losing out; all these "fringe benefits" may seem attractive, but they're the best of a good world and by no means integral or all that useful if you feel you already possess an adequate skillset.
Well said, Shepherdwolf. I think it really depends on who you are and what your lifestyle is like. Personally, as it stands, I'd rather have a pet dog than a working dog, but perhaps one day--when I get better with my cane--I'll consider a guide.
Lifestyle is a huge part of it. If your daily travel is fairly minimal, erratic or so well-entrenched that you're not too worried about missing things, or if you're in the right sort of environment, a guide dog's benefits, many as they may be, are just gravy. But if you have a complex route, or if you're one of those people who likes the bond of a working team, or if you take some sort of pride, pleasure or power from the ability to do a hundred and eight things that you probably won't use most of from day to day - and nothing against you if you do, by the way - then having a guide dog may be a good idea.
If I'm going to have a dog basically slave for me every day of its life, I'm not going to condemn it to sitting around under my desk.
While Sensual raised a lot of points I hadn't thought of, I think posts 36 and 37 expressed the most of what I tend to think about guide dogs. I'm a pretty damned good cane traveler; I don't think you can be a poor one to have moved as much as I did over the past several years. And by nature I'm a very matter-of-fact, somewhat aloof person until I get to know you, so I don't like a lot of the cutesy attention strangers have given to some of my friends who are guide dog users. Besides, I can put my cane by the door every night when I come home from work, and it won't bother me again until I have to use it in the morning. Frankly, and no offense is intended, but no worries about pissing, shitting, vomiting creatures that seem to be one constant need machine. That said, perhaps a poor cane traveler is going to garner more negative attention than a good guide dog user, but I venture to say the obverse is also true. I guess it really depends on how much work you want to put into what.
very well said, to the last few posters. I feel similarly as you all do, and am a damn good cane traveler, if I must say so myself.
As much as I love dogs, the puke and shit thing turns me off as well. Yeah yeah, I know, same as taking care of a little kid. But then I've never wanted kids either.
LOL. That's not much different from a pet dog either.
In the way of a pet, an outside cat is the ideal. We had a really friendly one when I was a kid, so the piss, shit and vomit factor was fairly minimal. Since I eventually want to get back to an urban area, I'm not sure that's an option since you have to keep both the cat and the litterbox in your apartment, and I'm not feeling that. But I digress.
Cat waste smells even worse.
Bird waste is the most tolerable. No waste is any good but birds at least it doesn't smell so bad. If birds ssmell, and I mean not just like wet newspaper, they're kept pretty unhygienically. Then again you have seed shells and feathers to pick up after birds. One reason I don't keep them as pets anymore. lol
I have to point out a few things here. First of all, I find it kind of appalling that someone listed a reason for not getting a guide dog as the fact that they don't want people giving them attention. That makes you sound like a dick, don't say that.
Secondly, shepherd wolf, though I don't think she meant to, pointed out something about cane travel that bears mentioning. You have to memorize the route religiously. One variation in that route, and you're up a creek without a paddle. I can't tell you how many times my dog led me around construction sites, downed trees, giant lakes that formed in the street after a hurricane, parked trucks and trailors, even gaggles of kids who wouldn't move. Often I don't even mean taking me ten feet out of my way to get around something. I mean having to go two or three blocks out of my way to get around something, and my dog did it. With a cane, I never would have been able to do that.
Plus, I like being able to explore. I don't want to have to memorize a route religiously, then take that same route every day, to the same spot. I went insane when I used to do that.
Now, I can wonder downtown, tell my dog to find a door, and she'll go to the nearest door. I pop in, see what the place is, and maybe make a new friend. I've found a lot of great little shops and stuff that way. Can't do it with a cane.
Certainly not so easily as you could with a dog.
You can definitely do it with a cane if you want to learn more than just a route, and I can assure you that I, personally, do. I don't want to know only those landmarks which will get me from point A to point B. I want to know what's in between, so while learning a route I'm apt to figure out what it is I'm passing. I think it's just different angles on the same thing...whether or not you go on autopilot while the dog does the work, or whether you put in the effort to actually know what it is you're passing or navigating around. I don't mind the extra work.
Furthermore, not wanting attention is a perfectly good reason not to have or get a guide dog. If you want to go about your business and generally be left alone, you're probably out of luck if you're blind whether or not you'e got an animal with you, but you may get more unwanted attention, of the over-friendly type, if a dog is there. It doesn't, in my estimation at least, make anyone sound like a dick.
You don't get any more attention with a dog than with a cane. In fact I get more negative attention with a cane than I do with a dog. No one has ever grabbed me while I used a dog, lots of people do it while using a cane.
Plus, not wanting people to say hi to you, or say nice dog to you, is being a dick. Sorry. That isn't being aloof, that's being stand offish, and that is a dickish thing to be.
You make it sound as if guide dog users have no connection with the environment around them. I have lots of interaction with the world around me. I don't need to touch something to interact with it with my guide dog. I can interact with sound, and with the reactions of the dog. Its not totally detached.
It is not totally detached, I'm sure. But having a cane is not totally the stumbling-around-looking-stupid pantomime it's been put across as, either. It doesn't force you to work exclusively with a route, and it does not in the least stop you from exploring. I'm just sort of neutralizing points here.
It is a person's choice if they don't wish to encourage friendliness. They'd be a dick if they told whoever approached them to piss off, but they're simply unwilling to be overly friendly if one of their reasons for getting a cane or a dog or whatnot is to discourage people bothering them.
I've seen a lot of mixed results as far as attention goes, in any case. I've seen guide dog owners get a lot of attention because of their dog, but I've also seen some cane users get a lot of attention either because they're lost or because, far more often, people want to ask them if they need help. It really is, I think, a matter of where you are, who you're around and how they deal with blind people, so I don't think any argument about why one works over the other is actually all that useful. Saying you want less attention and prefer a cane is kind of weak. Saying that you should use a dog so that you -don't get the attention some people do for fumbling around is equally unqualified.
Only problem with a cane is, no girl is ever gonna come up and say aww, what a cute cane!
haha, very true.
LOL. I definitely agree about people grabbing me. I've had that happen to me more times thanI care to try and count.
I dunno, Meglet. There are some strange girls out there...
One of the things I did in times past, and sometimes still do now, is to purposely get lost so I could explore with my cane. It's sometimes scary to push the bounds, but wandering around in some of the towns on Cape Codd and walking into stores just so that I could see what they were was and is something that is extremely possible if you're a good cane traveler. I'd again say that there are advantages and disadvantages to both cane and dog usage, but I'll reiterate that the disadvantages of dog use to me outweigh the disadvantages of cane use. Do I sometimes get grabbed while using a cane? Yes, and that's when people should know better, in my opinion. They see that I'm confidently walking where I need to go, including across the street, yet they grab me anyway. You can't put two and two together and see that in large measure I don't need help? Think a little! Granted there may be times when I'm wrong, but 99 percent of the time, I've proven to myself that I have pretty good judgment.
As for being a dick because I don't like a lot of cutesy attention, I'll take the risk. Yes, I hate it when people gush. Ergo, I'd hate it if they constantly gushed over me because of my dog, if I have one. I don't tell people to piss off if they say hi; I just largely like to be left to my own devices. Calling it aloofness or standoffishness makes no difference to me; I hate my personal space being invaded without invitation. I will admit, though, that you get a little bit more of that when you're blind anyway, so you have to treat at least some of it with a degree of grace, which I try to do.
All the posts I have read have brought up great points.
I think what everyone has to understand is that it is truly a personal choice. for some individuals, a guide dog is the best mobility option and for others, the cane is best. I have seen amazing cane users and terrible dog handlers. I think another thing to keep in mind is if you like tactile feedback. If you do, then a dog willl probably not appeal to you as you lose some of that information with a dog.
I am a guide dog user and it is the best option for me. there are pros and cons to each. I am a decent cane travelor however I feel more comfortable with my dog. That being said, I often will carry a cane with me just in case I need to pull it out for any reason. this could be my dog is sick or to gain tactile feedback if I am unsure of something. I feel that traveling with a guide allows me to be more independent. I like the ease of which I can navigate in a new environment. I recently took a trip to the mall of America. Ok, my niece wanted to go but I digress. I was able to navigate this huge mall with my dog and do it quickly so that my niece could visit as much as possible in the time we had.
I was on a cruise to Hawaii in december with my guide and navigating through the ship with 2500 passengers as well has going on excursions on land was a breeze with my dog. He learned my cabin in a blink, could navigate to any of the 3 banks of elevators, find the doors to the outside decks regardless of whether we have been on that floor before. He would guide me through crowds of people who were going into some of the evening entertainment and guide me directly to the dining room table that we sat at, being sure to take me around waiters, and other people in our path. On land, we hiked in the rain forest, traversed very uneven terrain on the lava flows, visited Pearl harbor etc. I am not saying that this isn't possible with a cane, only that it was made much easier for me with a dog.
In every day life, we are able to get to places quickly and safely. He will stop for low tree branches and other overhead obsticles. I recently moved into an area with snow and even though this was his first experience with it, he handled all the snow with flying colors. at some times this winter, we had a foot and a half of snow and not everyone is dillagent about shoveling the sidewalks. Loki knew where the path was despite the layer of white and even handled the snow drifts that plows nitoriously love to put right at the street crossings.
I love that I can easily travel to an unfamiliar place and tell my dog to find the door/stairs/elevator/escalator/bus/light rail train and he does without hesitation.
Now does this mean it is always perfect? no of course not. There are times where he might make a mistake. He isn't a robot after all and that is where my part comes in. In order to be successful we both have to do our part. I have to be attentive and aware of my surroundings. I have to be able to problem solve on those occasions where we do get disoriented. The reality is cane or dog, everyone gets lost sometimes. a dog can get distracted, especially a younger dog who you are still adjusting too which can be frustrating and put some off.
there is the care of the dog. For me, this isn't an issue. I don't mind the relieving, grooming etc. It is all worth it. You have to consider to you want that responsibility or would you rather put the cane in the corner and not have to worry about play or bonding. There is also a matter of trust with the dog. I don't mean you just blindly follow where ever the dog goes *excuse the pun* but by the same token you can't hold back when the dog is trying to guide. I have a friend who loves dogs, but she just isn't comfortable with having a guide dog. She actually got the opportunity to take a test drive with an instructor and she thought it was cool but that she just wasn't comfortable and that is ok.
another consideration is the fact that you only get a new cane when it breaks and there isn't a whole lot of adjustment that needs to be done when you get a new cane. with a guide you will have to adapt to a new dog every so many years. this is my second guide and while he has some similar traits, is still different then my first. which brings up the loss.of a beloved guide. My husband lost his retired guide last year. we had to make the decision to put him down because he had a cancerous lump that burst and was bleeding internally. we did the right thing for him but it doesn't lessen the pain of losing him. I have my retired guide with me now who is 13.5. I know that sooner then later I will end up going through the same thing. but for me, the years and memories are worth it.
I will say that I tend to have more positive public interaction when I am using a dog. can it get irritating, sure it can. But again, it is something I am willing to tolerate. I think it is a shame, but people tend to view me with pity when I use my cane and as super blindy when I use a dog. It shouldn't be this way but good luck changing the public. I have had someone grab my cane, but I also had an assistant grab my dogs harness in the airport. I expressly told him to take his hand off my dogs harness. A good analogy is would you want someone to put their hands on the steering wheel of your car? no? then don't touch mine.
In the end, it is all what you are comfortable with. being able to get from point a to point b safely and effectively is what matters. One isn't better then the other, just a different approach to getting the same thing accomplished. a person has to decide if a dog or a cane is the best tool for them. I think the public often is partially to blame for the misconception that getting a guide dog is the miracle worker. For many individuals it is, but it isn't the right answer for everyone. Many schools will often have lifestyle workshops which gives those who are interested in working with a dog the chance to learn more and get to do a test drive juno walk and even sometimes work a dog.
as for guide dog schools putting the testimonials on their website it makes sense to do that when you think about it. In order to have clients you need to advertise so they want to attract people to take an interest. I can't speak for all organizations, but many schools have information that helps a person decide whether they want to pursue obtaining a guide dog.
Ok, I initially meant this to be a much shorter post but had more to say. sorry if I rambled on.
To the last two posters: brilliant stuff, thanks for posting.
Oh yeah. I always figured that if I ever got a guide dog I would still carry my cane with me just in case I ever needed it. It's much easier to do that what with the existence of holsters LOL.
hi all and some interesting views i have heard and i see a debate has been happening between canes and guide dogs well i have had the opportunity to experience using a guide dog and a cane and i must say a dog is much better and you could have the bestest cane skills ever but still you can get yourself into trouble.
I think it is amazing what those dogs can do and i'm glad that there available to us and they do an awesom job, smiles.
Now i'd have to agree that it would be a harde decision to make if having to put your animal to sleep but i would only do it if it was the only option and i wouldn't prelong its suffering as that would be cruel.
I really think it's a matter of preference; even cane users who have had guides before prefer the cane, and many prefer the dog. And canes may not prevent you from making mistakes, but dogs make mistakes, too. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and I really think that this topic has demonstrated that fact quite clearly. No one solution is suitable for everybody.
a person saying they wouldn't want a guide dog due to the unwanted attention it would often bring, doesn't translate into them being a dick.
I've experienced such a thing firsthand. I attended a guide dog school for GPS training when I was in high school, and while there, they allowed us to try out walking with a guide dog.
I found that I really missed the information that my cane provided, despite the fact I wasn't a good cane user, at the time.
those saying that it boils down to personal choice, though, are absolutely correct. if you know you wouldn't wanna put that much trust in an animal, as I know is the case for myself, more power to you. knowing what you want, or don't want, is key.
also, shepherdwolf is exactly right, when he says that being a cane user doesn't limit one's exploring abilities, nor does a cane user have to stick to using one route all the time.
I'm a much better cane traveler than I used to be, and I must say that I enjoy being able to explore my environment, whether it's going into a store to find out what business it is, giving someone directions who's lost, or just knowing that I have the confidence to get to where I need to go, with trust in myself, along with great cane skills.
Great summary of my own views, Chelsea.
Ok, shepherd wolf. I've got to just try and get this through to you and the others. I don't give a damn how good of a cane user you are, a cane will not give you a traffic check, and I don't care how carefully you listen and read traffic, drunk drivers, teen drivers, texting drivers, drugged drivers, electric cars, old farts who shouldn't be driving, etc will get you. Hell, they get hundreds of sighted people each year. Once my guide stopped at a curb and my friend went to start moving, my sighted friend and my dog lunged forward and grabbed her jacket. Not a second later a guy going at least 60 in a 35 mile per hour area came flying by and had she stepped out, she would have been killed. A guide dog's primary purpose is not obstacle clearance, or showing you changes in elevation, it is traffic work, and there is no manmade gaget that will do that. Now if you are careful and lucky and you live in a fairly quiet area, you can get by fine, but counter balance the lucky factor with murphy's law "anything that can go wrong will go wrong." or just the law of averages if you prefer a less pessimistic view, and balance the careful with the factor of human error which you and I and everyone else is subject to, and balance the fairly quiet area with the unpredictability factor, and voila, a cane just will not do that bit for you, and never will. Also, I know all of the places I pass walking down town. The smells, the facial perception, the sounds and my dog's reaction to these places all tell me what I am passing. Now facial perception is something that not everybody has, and for those people tapping the building outline would be necessary, plus touching the side of the dirty, bird shit splattered building to guess what it is, and yeah, no thanks. Also, the sort of negative or pittying attention you get while banging around is far different from the admiring or at least positive attention you get with the dog. It can get old hearing "oh what a pretty dog." ten or twenty times a day, but its way better than the pittying looks and the constant offers of help. Ask a totally honest friend how much of that goes on when you walk down the street and you will be shocked and dismayed. I wanted to address something that someone said about the dog getting sick or distracted, or whatever. Yes a dog can get sick, which is unexpected, and the dog can generate some unforeseen circomstances, however the dog also helps overcome many unforeseen circomstances. Ever try chasing a city bus that you missed by 60 seconds? Well, guess what, you're not catching it using a cane. You can run with a dog, not recommended in a street, but you and your guide can sprint if you have too. Do that with a cane and you are going to fall down, jam your cane into your stomach when it hits something, vere off and twist an anckle, etc. And, what silver lightening described about exploring a neighborhood. Sure you can do that with a cane, and you will look like a moron. With your dog skirting planters, taking you right to doors instead of your fumbling around all over windows and bricks before finding one, that looks so stupid. Not saying you can't look stupid with a dog, or that a cane traveler on a familiar route can't look graceful, but when you are exploring, it is just less likely to have sighted people grabbing, fawning over, worrying about, commenting on and interfearing with you. I also object to the essertion that a guide dog user just wanders obliviously after their dog between point A and point B. You need to know how to direct your dog and have to memorize your route. The dog comes in handy if you screw up, which I do, which silver lightening does and which you, shepherd wolf certainly do as well. The difference is that the guide dog handler has a dog who many times will when lost take you to a familiar place or landmark from which you can now regroup. One time I got so lost due to detouring around a construction site that I wound up completely off campus. I finally got this really excited voice and said "Hey, Drew, let's go get some pizza, should we go get some pizza?" She knew the pizza place on the edge of campus. She stood there and for a minute I felt like a moron then she was off, pulling my arm off, glad to have a place to go. We made 8 street crossings went through an alleyway and there we were at the pizza place. From there I knew right where to go. Also, can we talk about construction sites? No cane user with half a brain would walk through one where it is so loud that you literally become deaf blind temporarily and the sidewalk is gone. I once wound up in such with my dog. The day before my husband told me it was about 6 feet of gravel then the sidewalk would pick back up. Well, no, apparently since 5 P.M. the day previous, it was now 8 in the morning the ntext day, they had torn everything apart. Now, ok, so cane user can just stop and back track when the sidewalk doesn't start back up, right? Wrong. My dog suddenly turned and took me up a tall hill of loose dirt across a lawn and back to the side walk. A construction worker ran over and said "Lady my friend almost ran you over, then your dog moved. I saw you, but he couldn't see you and I couldn't stop him in time, your dog is a hero." I heard the loud backhoes and the cement mixer, but the truck near me was far quieter and I couldn't even hear it over the roar of machines, but my dog got me out of the way. Were I a cane user I would have either been killed, or I would have had to back track and find help an never even go near the construction site in the first place. I have a friend, a family friend who was working a dog in New York city and walking down the street, past a construction site and her dog suddenly stopped then backed up, then went out into the road. A crane had swung a heavy concrete beam weighing several thousands of pounds through the space she had just occupied. A cane traveler would assume it safe to walk down a sidewalk that had not been blocked off with saw horses and that was not broken up, but they also would have been dead. I'd say all these unforeseen things that could kill you are worth the inconvienence of a dog getting sick or having to miss a day of guide work. Plus, if you have a guide and they get sick, then you can just use the almighty cane you think is so adiquit. Also, your friend can get sick, the cab driver can get a flat, the bus can run late, the subway can break down, the weather can get really nasty, and none of those are things you can control, but you can for the most part control your guide dog getting sick or getting distracted by doing what the school has taught you. You also said you can carry a spare cane if yours breaks, so how is that different from working a dog and carrying a spare cane? Its not. Another poster said it wouldn't be fair for a dog to have to sleep under your desk all day. First of all do you know what a pet dog would give to get to be with their human 24-7 instead of being left alone at home? Secondly, the dogs enjoy working and then enjoy resting. So, the desk thing is just silly. Every guide dog user knows how to use a cane and I wish every cane user could have a chance to try a guide dog, because all this back and forth is meaningless. Someone needs to try something to see if its worth it to them. If it isn't worth it to you, personally, that's fine, but you should have the chance to at least try a dog. Also, some of the things I have trained my dog to do are not mere perks. My dog knows how to find my son. A cane can not do that, and if he wanders off its no damn perk to find him, it is so much more serious than that. Can we talk about hiking? Unless its a paved path you can not go hiking with a cane, you need a dog or a sighted guide. And as for hiking alone, you need a dog if you are looking for blazes on the trees, like the guy who through hiked the Appalacian trail with his seeing eye dog. I'll continue this in a moment.
To Johndy. Think about this, cutesey attention you know about is better than quiet pittying attention you don't know about. Also, if someone is bothering you you can get away from them faster with a guide dog. You mentioned exploring in cape cod and I wanted to bring up this story. I knew a cane user who had multiple ribs broken and a lung punctured because they hit a horse pulling one of those carriages up there in cape cod with their cane. They didn't do it to be a jerk, they were using it properly and the horse was just right there and well hell, it must have startled the crap out of the horse and really hurt most likely. With a dog that dog is either going to avoid the horse or stop short and stare at it like "WTF is that?" These horses are well trained and socialized, and no moron will come up and just kick or hit a horse from behind. So the horse would not be spooked by a dog And a guide dog isn't going to let you blunder into a horse like that. I also know someone who was assaulted because they hit someone's child with a cane, by accident, but having teeth broken out of your mouth and having a toddler with a broken nose that you tripped up with your cane and sent sprawling is no fun for anyone. Also, walking in a group. You can walk just like a normal person with a group of friends with your guide, but with the cane they have to give you a wide birth so you don't hit them by mistake, or they all have to stay behind and beside you. You could go sighted guide, but then you are dependent. Walking independently just like everyone else in a group of college friends is just a really nice affirming thing. Chelslicious, I don't care how much you trust yourself and your skills, I trust a pair of working eyes that can judge the speed and trejectery of an approaching car, whether they are human or canine, way more than I trust your or my ears, because sound can be deceptive. Also, if a cane user makes a mistake, it can get them killed. If a guide dog handler makes a mistake the dog can keep them from getting killed. And a guide can make a mistake, but they can correct it as well. I want to tell some more stories, so indulge me, ok? Once in an airport the person helping us left for a moment to help another passenger, she had put me and my 3 year old son right in the path of one of those people movers. Let me describe so you can see how it could hurt us and how I didn't know it was coming. Some airports have a conveyance that you step onto like boarding a subway, and the step up onto it is very slight. They are very quiet, they glide along, and they are large, can hold many people and suitcases. They do not run on tracks like a train or have a sunkin bed like a subway, they run along the tile floor. Their path apparently is marked with differently colored tile. Frieda was sleeping, sacked out on the nice cold tile, then she jumped up and gave me a tug. I corrected her thinking she was after dropped food or another dog. She turned and grabbed my wrist in her mouth and pulled. I followed her as that is not normal behavior for her. Then this thing went by, big enough and fast enough to have killed us, because it would have knocked us down then dragged us. I probably would have been very badly injured, my son would have been killed. As a cane user standing there I would have had no idea until we were hit. Another time I was waiting for a bus downtown. I heard a weird sound coming, up the street, or so I thought. It was really loud and I listened carefully and it honestly sounded like it was on the street. Well, it was a sidewalk version of a street sweeper. This means a vehicle on the sidewalk, with boiling hot water and spinning wire brushes. People caught under machines like that always die, they get sucked in, torn apart and burned terribly and crushed all at the same time. And if you fall near it the spinning circular brushes at the sides will pull you under from the side even if you don't fall in front of it. Frieda started wining and I knew something was up, I didn't know which way to go. I just couldn't tell if this thing was on the street as I had thought and as was logical, or if it was on the sidewalk as it now sounded. Well, Frieda took me into the street, and yes, again, saved my life. It was just starting to get light out and the guy never saw me, and there was no one around to help. I'd never heard of or seen such a machine so had no conception of what it was. Frieda had taken us into the street, of the perpendicular traffic which was stopped, and as that thing was cleaning right where we had just been standing the traffic started to move. I couldn't hear that either over the sound of the machine, trust me they are freaken loud, but she took the iniciative to take me in the street around the corner into the parallel street where traffic had now stopped. I told her to cross and we went to the other corner. Once safely there I got some IPhone pictures and asked some class mates what the hell that was and how they didn't see me. Travel skills are up for debate depending on the individual, but there are just some things that attentiveness, good hearing and intelligence can not compensate for. If I could rename guide dogs I would call them dog eyes, or canine visual assistants, because guiding is not what they are for. They are protection from the unexpected and they function as eyes. A cane can not function as eyes. It functions like tunnel vision, it functions like a person with a field of vision that extends 2 to 5 feet around them in a less than 180 degree radius. So, you miss the feedback of the cane, it lets you see those things right around you, but the dog sees things a mile off, it sees things across the street, it sees things coming up behind you. I don't know any sighted person who would be contented with vision that has such a limit as the "sight" that a cane gives to the user. Pilots only have a windchield for fun. The plane's self monitoring, self correcting features do the work, and when the pilot needs to know what's going on they, like a blind person rely on the voice of air traffic control, or like a video gamer they rely on the screne with the little blips on it, not on the very limited view from the plane's windchield. When we work a guide we are listening for air traffic control and trusting the plane, or rather we are trusting the people who made the plane, just like we trust the people who trained the dog. Our ears are air trafic control, the plane is the dog. Using a cane is like a pilot with their nose pushed to the widnow insisting that they see, while the air traffic controller tries to tell them that below them the runway is damaged or unexpectedly blocked, somethying they won't see until its too late and they've gotten through the cloud bank. Or staring at the clear blue in front of the plane while the plane's little screne with blips tries to alert them that there is another plane out of their sight line that is going to hit them. But for the love of that little limited, inaccurate view the pilot rejects this other feedback. Using a guide is like being a pilot who essentially flies blind. Someone with tunnel vision could fly a plane, a blind person could fly a plane if the radar screne was tactle and refreshed at the speed that the visual display changes. Preoccupation with the windchield causes plane crashes. I hope that analogy makes sense. Because that is the best way to describe it. Using a cane doesn't give you eyes, not your own, and not someone elses, and the dog gives you eyes to borrow. With the cane and the dog you have ears, a nose, skin that picks up air currents, facial perception, and then you can add to that the sight you lack with the dog. The cane sort of gives you a longer arm to grope around with or an extra foot to explore with, a dog gives you eyes. The little extra length you lose from your artificially extended arm or leg is traded in for sight, way better deal.
sensually, maybe that's a better deal in your eyes, but as you said, to each their own. if you read my post correctly, you'd recall that I stated that I've had experience with a guide dog and feel they aren't for me.
also, what most people don't seem to realize, is that there are longer canes that equal more reaction time. they don't hit your stomach when you bump into something, cause they're quite long, not to mention a lot lighter than the canes most people are probably thinking of.
I'd just like to respond to a couple of things.
First of all, those dog-rescue type stories are wonderful, and I won't take an inch of credit away from any and all involved. You're absolutely right when you say canes won't save your ass by themselves. They're inanimate. They can't. However, I think the barrage of such anecdotes presents a bit of a glossy finish to what must still be viewed as an imperfect way of getting around. It puts too much emphasis on the very small chance of being hurt, and seems to tout the value of a guide dog in those circumstances as if every second or third excursion will carry imminent mortal danger with it. To put it straight: guide dogs can actively think for themselves and may save your life, but since these situations are likely to be rare in the extreme, using this logic to suggest that the dog is better is a touch on the weak side. It's like saying a four-wheel-drive pickup truck is better than a minivan because it has more space for cargo and can handle terrain better. You're not taking into account the extra gas consumption, for one thing, nor the need for either going through rough terrain or hauling heavy items. The truck will do those things while a minivan won't, but unless you're experiencing it a lot, you'd probably want to seriously consider something that wasn't a pickup truck if your cargo-hauling and off-road driving were minimal.
As has been said in other posts, it really and truly is a matter of preference. For me, and for people like me, the decision-making of the dog, while definitely a perk in certain cases, is no match for the ultimate freedom and lack of upkeep a cane requires. I fold the instrument up and put it away when I'm done with it, and when I need it, out it comes. No carrying around harnesses, other dog paraphernalia and having to always make sure there's a physical place for my sixty-five-pound animal. No need for a total shift in my thinking and outlook when it comes to getting around when what I've got does more than just suffice. I've been using a cane since I was eight, twenty-one years ago, and the worst thing that's ever happened to me was my own fault. It doesn't mean that the dog couldn't save me if I got unlucky, but I'm not going to live my life expecting the worst. If I did that, and took it to any sort of extreme, I might as well just take a cab everywhere...or better yet, stay home and not go out. That logic doesn't wash though, so I figure that, since the cane does everything I need it to do and comes with no drawbacks that in any way inhibit my personal lifestyle, that's what I'll do. Other people are more than free to have a dog for any reason they wish.
That does beg the question though, how many drawbacks on your personal lifestyle are you simply used to and thus ignoring?
I remember being just like you when I first went off to guide dog school. I didn't think the dog would do anything new, or change my life in any major way, until I used it for the first time. Then I realized just how much the cane negatively impacts your life.
Think about it, you're swinging around a giant pole. You walk down a crowded hallway and force people to step or even jump out of your way to avoid hitting them. And you think because you can fold your cane up and put it away that you don't have to think about arrangements for it? What do you think folding it up and putting it away is? That is finding suitable arrangements for it.
Also, in saying that, you clearly demonstrate your lack of familiarity with a dog. Let me make something perfectly clear here, to both you and Chelsea. Testing out a guide dog to see what its like is not using a guide dog. That little introduction test you go through doesn't show you a quarter of what using a guide dog actually is.
However, that's assuming a little bit on my part, so lets get some clarification here. describe to us if you will exactly what you mean when you say you have experience with guide dogs? What school did you go to? What was your guide dog's name? What breed was it? Where did you go with it? What environment did you live in while you had your guide dog?
we can all assume that every blind person has had real life experience with a cane. Most of us have, since we use them from the time we become blind. But what real life experience do you have with a guide dog? Cuz right now, I'm leaning towards the "not a whole heck of a lot" end of the scale. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
See, that's the thing. I've never been bumped by an electric cart in an airport. I've never encountered an alligator. I've dealt with streetsweepers hundreds of times in Manhattan by using my hearing and getting out of the way because duh, I recognize that these things are streetsweepers. They move slowly enough so I can avoid them. I've walked freely and independently with people in Poland and elsewhere without worrying about hitting them because speaking just for me, I always seem to know where other people are by hearing them. I don't buy that you can't necessarily traverse hiking trails with a cane versus a guide dog, but then I've never done it, to be honest. But as I said, I've traveled independently in Minneapolis, NYC, Cape Cod, Poland, Chicago, Denver and Albany NY without having to use a dog. I can pick up the cane and simply go out without havving to feed, bathe, care for a dog, and yes, cutesy attention to me is far more anoying than pitying looks I don't know about because, well, I don't know about them. They can look at me all they want. I've reached a stage in my life where if you want to pity me for something that's not gunna change, there's nothing I can do about it. Giving me pitying glances doesn't interfere with my needing and having to do things. And if someone says something pitying to me, guess what? They simply get ignored. I don't have time for stupidity.
I've never been hit by a car either, doesn't mean I don't watch out for them. I've never been mugged, doesn't mean I go walking down alleys at two in the morning.
I listen for cars and 99.9 percent of the time nothing's gunna happen because I know what I'm about. As I've heard of people getting mugged while walking through dark alleyways at 2:00 in the morning, so I don't do that either. I've never cleaned up dogsick or shit, but I've seen friends do it, and I ain't gunna do that either, no way no-how.
I don't have to have owned a dog in order to observe the things about owning a dog that I don't like or which wouldn't work well with my lifestyle. For instance, things like prep time, extra care, a complete shift in the way I interact with the world while I travel. At this point, I'm all about doing things the way I know how, and since that way works well, that's good enough for me. I don't routinely encounter situations where a dog would be saving my life. Like Johndy, I am very aware of what I'm hearing, and don't tend to remain in the way of things that are moving; I personally have never encountered a vehicle I can't hear, not even in driving rain. I'm not saying everyone else is the same, or ought to be, but thus far in my life, I am. I guess the harshest thing to be said there is that one overcalculation could be fatal, but that's true of almost any travel scenario, dog included.
You make arrangements for a cane, yes, but I think you can accept that making arrangements with a cane is much much easier. When folded, the tool is about eleven inches in length and two inches thick and, rigid though it is, weighs less than a pound and a half. It can go inside a large pocket, a purse, a backpack, an airline seat pocket, or any number of other places a dog can't. I don't have to bring along extra crap to feed the cane, pick up its shit and interact with it. I need nothing more than the tool itself. Any arrangements I must make for the cane are small...so small that my point still standsas it pertains to making arrangements.
People can, will and do get out of the way of a dog-person combo. I've observed this while accompanying a former partner who had a guide dog and listening to how people interact. The scatter effect of a cane is a bit more pronounced, and generally the dog is going to try and weave you around people...but hey, guess what? If those people are making any sound at all, you're probably going to be trying to go around them as well, even if you've got a cane. At least, you ought to be trying to do that if you're aware of your environment the way I feel you ought to be. You owe it to your fellow travelers to try, at any rate.
I didn't need to own a dog to watch someone take a full minute to get off a train, risking missing their chance to get where they wanted to go.
I didn't need to own a guide dog to become very familiar with all the potential mischief a dog can get up to, the upkeep they require (more than with a pet, for sure).
I also didn't need to own a guide dog to determine that it's not for me. If you watch a roller-coaster go through a series of dizzying loops and twists, you would be okay in saying "Oh no thanks, I don't want to ride", even though you've never done it. If you get headaches really easily or suffer from bad breathing problems, you'd be equally qualified to say "I don't want to live in Colorado" even though you'd never been there. You don't have to do a thing extensively in order to have valid opinions as to why it's not for you.
One thing I'll give you: you, and other guide dog users, may have more experience with a dog, and you may know inherently more of the benefits. This is, however, no different than a roller-coaster enthusiast saying "Seriously. Going upside-down doesn't feel that bad" to someone standing on the ground. It works well for you, and for others, but for yet more it does not. There are many reasons for this.
Something else I forgot in my last post:
Have you ever noticed that the guide-dog people, many of them anyway, have a "you should do it our way" mentality, while just about every cane user to date is of the "live and let live" persuasion? That's kind of telling in itself.
Yeah, so do smokers. They have the live and let live mentality too. I bet you're perfectly willing to cast a vote to get them out of public places.
And you keep coming up with this prep time issue, as if its a big deal. It takes maybe fourty five seconds to a minute to get the harness and leash onto a guide dog. Its one buckle and a clip on the leash.
You're one experience seeing a guide dog user take more than a minute to get off a train isn't really that good of evidence. I've seen a bike rider fall off a bike, does that mean all bike riders suck at balancing? I've seen cane users who couldn't find the right door if they were dragged to it on a sled pulled by reindeer, but I realize not all cane users are like that.
Basically, what you're saying, is that you have absolutely no experience with a guide dog, and are simply going on what you perceive a guide dog to be. So, since I perceive you to be unintelligent, can I treat you as such without you getting insulted? No, so why is it any better for you to work off uneducated presumptions?
“Yeah, so do smokers. They have the live and let live mentality too. I bet you're perfectly willing to cast a vote to get them out of public places.” Your evidence? I didn’t see anything in posts 73 or 74 tending to suggest Shepherdwolf was either a smoker or a non-smoker, or that if a non-smoker, he wanted to get smokers out of public places. As for non-smokers wanting this, I’m a non-smoker, but not an anti-smoker. I personally have no problem with smokers hanging with non-smokers. In fact, I used to sit in smoking sections of Amtrak because that’s where all the seats were.
“You're one experience seeing a guide dog user take more than a minute to get off a train isn't really that good of evidence.” It is if it supports the conclusion that dogs are not necessarily always better than canes, and that as a cane user, he can get offf a train neater and quicker than that particular guide dog team can. Besides, seeing more than one guide dog team in which the handler had to clean up sick and shit from one’s home or public floor is more than enough evidence that for me, a guide dog is definitely not worth it. That’s why a lot of cane users are rather live and let live about it. If that’s the sort of thing you wanna do with your time, and if the good you get out of a guide dog outweighs that particular negative, then hit the road and go cat, go.
very well said, shepherdwolf, and johndy.
you know the interesting thing I am seeing hereis this. it's like the dog users are trying to convince the cane users that their way is better. I use a dog. I am a strict dog handler. I can use a cane. I can use a cane well. I say, if folks don't want a dog then, that's fine. because, we don't need folks with dogs who don't really want them but were convinced that they are better so got one anyhow. I say live and let live.
I just got back from one of the national conventions. you see it all there, really crappy dog handlers and super good ones. many less of the good ones, unfortunately. you see loads and loads of great cane users and, some bad ones. but, what I will point out is, just 1 crap dog handler draws more attention than 10 bad cane users.
I completely understand the simplicity of a cane. dogs can be a pain at times. but, I choose to use a dog. dogs take way more work than any cane. I say, to each their own choice. who cares which is better. it's only what is better for you that matters.
I can answer your question of who cares which is better, anyone interested in a discussion of the topic cares. I seriously have to wonder if the people who are constantly touting the agree to disagree ticket actually think of what that idea entails.
There'd be no more conversations. You'd have two friends eating lunch together. One would say, "You know Bill I think this sandwich is a little dry". Bill would then say, "Well jeff, I like my sandwiches dry." then they'd just be, "well we'll have to agree to disagree."
But then, what subject are they gonna bring up? Politics, agree to disagree. Theology, agree to disagree. Yankees baseball, agree to disagree. Whose wife is more bangable, agree to disagree.
We're on a discussion board people. When you hit that little link that says boards, you're entering a discussion zone. So if the only discussion you are able to drum up are those three little words, just say nothing. It serves the exact same purpose.
Oh, and Chelsea, you never answered my question. SW did, by saying that he once saw something once upon a time that might have or might not have been bad and he just ran off of that one thing. Joandy did by repeating the fact that he/she (sorry, not sure which is applicable), doesn't like dealing with icky squishy things and squealing like a girl; artistic license taken. So what's your answer Chelsea?
Just a few things:
1. Don't use logical fallacies to prove points, as it tends to smear egg all over your face. A cane will not intrinsically offend, hurt or risk people the way a smoker does, particularly not when it comes to the user, so let's kindly dispense with the "live and let live" smoker argument. It's groundless, and serves only to try and demonize my stance.
2. Pursuant to point 1, I note that you did not in fact defend the suggestion that guide dog owners, in many instances, seem to be looking for converts. I'm drawing a really funny parallel to religion here. You felt that it was okay to try and bastardize the live-and-let-live mentality of a cane user in order to defend your continuous assault on a person's freedom to choose for themselves without being judged, ridiculed or attacked. That sort of rhetoric might work if you're a politician or a televangelist, but in the real world, person to person, it's transparent and only serves to make you look foolish. On a slightly different angle of the same point though, thank you, Dayna, for the way you view things. You're a dog owner who's live-and-let-live above all else. The guide works better for you, so kudos for making the best choice for you.
3. The train experience, Cody, was one particularly noteworthy occurrence and nothing more. My previous partner had a guide dog for the entire time we were together. I spent approximately thirteen weeks off and on with this dog, was able to watch all kinds of interaction and, based on the whole rather than on one negative experience, deduced that guide dogs are not for me. I didn't have to own it or work it to know what I'd be up against, and to know I wasn't willing to change what I do, since what I do works perfectly well.
4. Please do the rest of us a favour and stop implying, by your words and actions, that all but a select few of us are stupid. We can and do know what we're talking about, even when we don't do things your way Most of us are rational human beings who are more than capable of explaining things, even though we shouldn't have to. To wit, how many cane users on these boards are essentially bullying guide dog users for their choice?
...and that circles very nicely back to point 1, so I'll leave it there.
Actually, I think Silver got it right on one aspect: There'd be no discussions if we agreed to disagree. Many times someone's gotta be right, but this is one of those times where it's a valid discussion with no real winners except for good dog handlers and good cane handlers. Two and two equal four, but I'm afraid guide dogs are no better than canes. (And for the record, I'm a male; hence the nickname "J-O-H-N-D-Y.")
Sorry, I missed something in my last post.
One of my earlier posts mentioned being with a partner who had a guide dog. It also mentioned becoming very familiar with guide dogs. This runs directly counter to your assumption that I'm using one bad experience to judge them, or decide they aren't for me. If you're going to attack what I'm saying, please actually read what I'm saying instead of just assuming. Admittedly, the notion that I might have spent extendedtime with the guide dog is not automatic since maybe it was a long-distance online-only relationship (it was long-distance, but not online only, not at all). However, when I clearly stated that I had experience with observing a guide dog, that should have, at the very least, prompted you to ask what that experience consisted of rather than causing you to believe that the experience was one user having trouble getting off a train. This is the problem when you believe people are less intelligent than you. When they clearly show that they aren't, and then you misjudge them, you come off looking like you've bitten off way more than you can chew.
No one's saying guide dogs have no benefits. No one's saying guide dogs suck outright, that I can see. The worst thing anyone has said is that "a guide dog is not for me", and why can't that be good enough? I keep coming back to this and I've yet to receive a satisfactory answer.
Are you running Windows 8 on the latest-model laptop? If not, what the hell are you waiting for?
Are you using the latest smart-phone with all the most useful apps you can possibly scrounge? If not, what's wrong with you?
Are you active in social media and the community? If not, where are your social skills and why are you being such a jerk?
...See how silly all that looks? People generally don't do that to each other, even if in many cases there are benefits to doing something a certain way. People choose not to upgrade, to switch, to go out and totally revamp their way of doing things, because quite frankly they are best equipped to decide what's going to work for them. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll stop looking entitled to decide for others and the sooner we can get back to civilized discussion.
Sorry Johndy, I didn't check your profile before writing that. No offense intended.
The smoker thing was a metaphor, though I find it incredibly humorous you all balked at it so vehemently.
SW, I've had a few girlfriends, I'm sure you have too. I know for a fact that you have a long term girlfriend. You've been around girls all your life, I'm willing to bet. Tell me what a period feels like. Then you can tell me that being around someone is experiencing something. You can observe them, sure. We can figure out that a period is probably not something we'd want to go through. That doesn't mean we know what its like.
I'll give you a bit less personal of an example. The idea of a hot stone massage used to make me squeamish. Just the idea of someone putting hot rocks on my bare skin made me shudder, physically shudder. I'd been in the same room as people who were having hot stone massages. I heard them say how great they felt, but I was still squeamish because I hadn't experienced them. Then, one day, I got the nerve to try one. They're amazing, I highly suggest them.
So, you saw a person take there time getting off a train. My question is, do you know their reason for taking their time getting off a train? I don't know how much sight you have, so its entirely possible they were waiting for someone to join them, or searching for something, or someone was blocking the exit of the train. I can think of several possible reasons for that circumstance. You're conclusion is, "well guide dogs must be slow". That is an argument from ignorance. You want to talk about not using logical falicies. You just used both an argument from ignorance and an argument from personal revelation in one post.
As for your last statement, I have to confess something, its gonna hurt. I do find most of the people on this site to be stupid, or at least ignorant. Is that harsh of me? Probably, but I've talked with, seen the board posts of, and read conversations with enough people on here to have come to that conclusion. And what's more, I did it through personal investigation and experience rather than hearsay.
Good grief. The more you say, the deeper your grave gets.
Considering that I was close enough to hear what was going on, I happen to know that the time delay with the guide dog on the train was because theeuser had to get her dog out from under the seat, had to straighten out snarled-up leash and such that had gotten tangled to hell and gone, and then had to get her own backpack situated before getting off the bus. My conclusion is not, and has never been, that guide dogs are slow or unmanageable all the time, and furthermore, I've also never said that it was my only reason for not wanting a dog. It just happens to illustrate the potential amount of upkeep which, considering my strong cane skills, I neither need nor want to deal with.
I note that you have not in any way either answered my question about the bullying mentality, nor defended your blatant error regarding my experience. Having actually reread the post from which you based your erroneous conclusion, I actually see that I mentioned having been around my partner with her dog, which precludes it having been an online relationship and suggests very strongly that I probably saw that dog more than once (if I can see my partner once, then it was probably either for multiple days or happened multiple times). Reasonable expectation and all that. So, because I used one example of many that I've picked up, I am branded inexperienced and unfit to judge? Sorry about your luck, life doesn't work that way.
I don't need to be a woman to not want to go through a period, and I don't need to be a guide dog user to decide that I'm happy enough with a cane not to want to make the switch. Game, set, match.
I believe Shepherdwolf did imply that he had more than passing observational experience with a guide dog. Meaning, he was using the train incident as just one example from a few he might have pointed to. I'd be curious to know what else prompted Shepherdwolf to conclude that guide dogs are not for him. It's a fair question. For instance, I can list them off, as I already have: (1) The grooming. (2) The normal bathrooming. (3) the expense of buying dog food. (4) The cutesy attention you get from total strangers when you just want to go about your business. (5) The extranormal cleaning/bathrooming issues. I lived in a dorm with a friend of mine whose dog had several incidents. I also was at a restaurant when another friend's dog barfed on the floor. (6) The training and re-training you have to do from one dog to the next. (7) The inconvenience of storing a dog because of its relative mass to a cane, combined with the attention you have to give it. You can fold a cane, take it with you anywhere, set it in a corner and it doesn't demand attention, feeding, petting, grooming, bathrooming. (8) The knowledge that temperamentally, I just don't want something that needy around me. Dogs need dog people. They need more love and attention than I'm willing to give, and it would be counterproductive to both the dog and the handler to be ill-matched.
I think you can come to these conclusions both through observation and through a deep assessment of your own personality. I have a friend at work who decided to get a dog, and is now on the verge of returning it because it doesn't suit his lifestyle. Frankly, I could've told him he was probably not gunna like it, but I've observed him for a few months and concluded he probably wasn't much of a dog person. But that was his realization to make, not mine. I'll just observe that not enough people do the soul-searching it necessarily takes for such a big decision, and I surmise it's a pretty major one. You gotta be confident in your abilities and know your own limitations. (And Silver, apology accepted.)
And Shepherdwolf, you can disregard my last. My posts aren't catching up I guess (smile).
Johndy, you pretty much summed up most of the reasons I don't think a dog is for me.
Can I handle it? Am I capable? Hell yes, and heaven knows you deal with worse if you ever have kids. I'm not the sort of person who'd put a kid up for adoption purely because I don't really want one.
However, since what I've got works perfectly well, and since there's a lot of stuff inherent in owning a guide dog that will definitely both me - and yes, I do have enough experience to be sure of this - well, quite frankly, no one else has a right to tell me I'm wrong or unfit. Ask if you like, just be prepared to accept that the answer you hear is mine, not yours.
I can accept it because those are precisely my reasons. It's also interesting to me that many among the sighted seem to think a dog is the answer to everything despite the evidence that's before their eyes. To wit, I was going home one day and was relatively unfamiliar with the bus lines, so I asked this guy whether the bus I heard in front of me was the one I wanted or not. He told me no, and then asked me where my dog was.
"Do you see one?" I asked.
"Well, no, but you should have a blindness dog."
First of all, if you know what you're talking about, why would you call a guide dog a "blindness dog"? Secondly, wouldn't you assume that since I got from my job to the bus stop, which involved, by the way, the crossing of a pretty busy intersection, that I must've gotten there without the aid of a dog, and that the cane I had in my hands was at least up to the job? So, without missing a beat, I said: "Well, you shouldn't be telling adults how to run their own lives." Funny how I never heard a word from him or saw him again. Maybe I was a bitch, but I think my point was made. Didn't have to call him stupid to make him feel that way.
the problem with all those assumptions, and yes, that's what they are, is that they're faulse, or at least geometrically less severe than you think. That is why I say you don't have the knowledge.
Johndy, guide dogs are not pets. You don't have to sit with them all the time and play fetch. In fact, you shouldn't sit with them and play fetch all the time. Its bad for their discipline. They work. That is the attention they get. So while you're going to the gas station to get orange pushpops, they're getting attention. You praise them, and that's it. All there is to it. And no, praise does not mean you get down on the ground and scratch behind their ears. It just means you say good boy, or good girl, that's it.
Grooming takes all of five minutes in the morning. It took me more time to brush my teeth. It isn't a drastic undertaking like you're making it sound. You run a brush over the dog, and that's about it. Maybe once a month you drop them off at the groomer, done.
If you saw dogs throwing up all the time, there was something wrong with that dog's handler. My initial guess would be letting the dog eat off the floor. Same with going to the bathroom. The dogs are trained not to go inside.
Storage of the dog is simple, it sits next to you. Takes all of three seconds to move your arm in a circle to direct the dog where to sit, then give one command. That's all there is to it.
Food costs maybe thirty five dollars every month and a half or so, depending on the school you get your dog from. I can't really help it if you're skin-flinted.
So, that takes care of all the specific complaints. The only thing left is SW's train thing, and to that I ask, "You ever dropped your cane?"
Skinflint? Really? Not hardly if I'm gunna buy a $1500 Mac in the next couple weeks. But I don't have to groom that either, and it'll do far more for me than a dog will. You might have some valid points about the whole throwing-up thing, but you can't always tell whether, and/or to what extent, a dog will get sick and you'll have to clean that up. If I don't have to groom something or bathroom it or whatever to get what I consider the maximum amount of independence, I guess I'm going with old reliable. See, if canes were either outmoded, ineffectual or simply that much more inferior than dogs were, almost nobody would use canes, and enough blind people use canes and use them well such that there is this debate going on in the first place.
I'm not gonna be repetitive, so I'll say that johndy's last few posts perfectly summed up some of the reasons why I don't want a guide dog.
shepherdwolf also brought up a great point that I was going to, myself, which is that the fact I don't feel a guide dog isn't for me, is enough justification. I don't need to have worked with one for months or even years on end to come to such a conclusion, nor do I need to spend time articulating my views to those who are ignorantly of the mind that one is better than the other, rather than having a live and let live philosophy.
thank you, Dana, for being a guide dog handler who sees both sides, and accepts that what works for you, may not work for others.
Dogs need more upkeep. Period. It's not a herculean amount of upkeep - if you have a pet dog, you're going to have a good deal of it naturally anyway - but we aren't somehow inferior because we don't want to deal with it, any more than we'd be inferior for deciding we don't want kids, or a parrot, or any other potentially messy pet.
You feel that the potential headaches are small enough to offset the good a dog brings. That's cool. I'd feel that way if I thought my cane skills weren't up to snuff as far as getting around in the world was concerned. But guess what? I do in fact feel that my skills are sufficient, indeed more than sufficient, for getting me around, so when I ask myself "why would I go through this extra headache, even if it's not utterly horrible?", I immediately answer, "I wouldn't. Life's too short. If the cane stops being an option, or if I change my mind, then that's as may be, but until then, I've made my choice."
Cody, you seem to be just about the only person who's really tried to convince others outright to get a guide dog, and I think it's time you took a step back and asked yourself what you've done. The way you responded to this topic, and the way you've stuck your nose into others, has shown you for exactly what you are...a person who believes that his intelligence entitles him to throw it around. Instead of conceding even an inch, you deflect or ignore the points you don't like while trying to paint black every point you think you can. You're a smart guy, you make good points sometimes, but we can disagree with you without being wrong. You can disagree with us without being a jerk too, if you try really hard. At least, I think you can. Everyone else can, anyway.
Anyway, I think that about wraps it. The very fact that cane users have been put in a position where they have felt it necessary to expand so widely on their reasons for believing and acting as they do...well, that speaks very eloquently for itself. Not once has a guide dog user, to my knowledge anyway, been in that position. We have the decency to respect your right to choose, even if we might shake our heads and go "God, no thanks. Can't be bothered, personally". Why can't that suffice? You'll notice I keep asking that question and keep not getting it answered. Have I outlined the flaw in your behavior clearly enough yet? I hope so, because I'd hate to have to take back my comment about your intelligence. You've got the tools...now use them for something besides double standards, poor analogies and misguided efforts of imposition.
Shepherdwolf, I agree with all of your points, but personal attacks are unnecessary. God knows others use them often enough as it is.
Let me make something clear, since my last post is potentially misleading: this does not mean I am in any way supporting or encouraging what Cody and others have been doing. It is unfair, as has been pointed out to me, to call out one person's behaviour without calling out others as well.
What I've done here is extremely deliberate. It is a fight-fire-with-fire scenario of sorts. I'm doing it to outline how jerkish it makes me look when I do it, and silently begging the question of why it's okay at all. If I can't do it (and I shouldn't, I really shouldn't), then others shouldn't either. You don't have to be harsh to disagree with or take issue with someone, as Meglet just proved in spades.
I suppose in a way it can be said that I'm now no better than those against whom I protest. Believe that if you wish, but please don't let it deflect from two firm points:
First, that it was retaliatory;
Second, that arguments were still being made, and further pressed, and while there was a bit of personal targeting tossed in, the overall point was still very much the topic at hand, as opposed to the derision of a victim.
This is not an excuse of my actions, merely an explanation and contextualization.
To be frank, I'm tired of good points falling dead because someone refuses to answer a question. I see it as a very easy way out of a sticky corner to simply ignore it when it gets too hot for you, which runs at counterpoint to the confrontational stance embodied in many other posts. I also intensely dislike hypocrisy, which should give you an indication of how little I liked being sharp in my previous post. I don't like the idea that it's okay for person 1 to chase, to be high-handed, while it's not okay for person 2 to chase as relentlessly. Let's be clear: you aren't right just because your target decides you are no longer worth sparring with. The argument ends, but weight is not immediately given to one argument or another on those grounds.
I think it would be good if, from here on in, all and sundry (and this of course includes me) stuck to facts. No more wild left-field shots about who does or does not have experience from unqualified sources. No more flaunting of intelligence as a means of trying to imprint your point on someone. No more snide remarks to highlight the weaknesses you see, or think you see, in someone else's words. I wouldn't quite say "live and let live" should be taken to an extreme, as was jokingly suggested and derided in an earlier post, but I would suggest that a little less judgment and self-aggrandizement would go a long way toward turning this thing civil again. I, for one, am sick to death of feeling this way on a public forum owing to the atmosphere that sometimes characterizes these discussions.
Then get off them. I do not care in the least about whether your feelings are hurt by my phrasing or the fact that I disagree with you. You're a big boy, deal with it. Welcome to being an adult, it sucks.
Now, about your question, I answered it in another post, but for the sake of fairness I'll answer it again. I care more about the price of tea in china than I do about whether some Canaidian whose name I don't even know or care to find out swings a pole in front of him when he walks. I'd rather learn about the mating habits of wombats than learn about every single blind person's mobility choices. I don't care. use a dog, use a cane, use a tree branch, train a pygmie to run in front of you and whistle Dixie so you can follow him. It doesn't effect my life, so I don't care.
Now, of course, I'm sure some of you will then ask why I'm posting to all these boards about a subject I don't care about. The answer to that question is simple. I don't care about whether or not SW uses a cane or uses a giant lazar. But the topic of the board isn't that. Its guide dog versus cane. I have an opinion on that subject, so I shared it. That opinion was challenged, so I answered it. Its this little thing we recently invented called a discussion. I highly suggest them. The major difference is that I don't back down from discussions like many people here.
Lastly, Chelsea, it strikes me as odd that you can be on this board and say you don't need evidence for why you have a belief, that you just do. You saw a few things, and it was good enough for you. But then, you can also have the history you do on these boards of being an outspoken atheist and skeptic. That's extremely hypocritical Chelsea. If you're going to be a skeptic, you should be skeptical of everything. So where's your evidence for your claim. I'm not accepting your "Jesus did it" argument.
I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. If you don't care the least bit, then why even bother trying to convince people that are solidly set in their ways and just shake someone off who they feel is being overly pompous just because they can? If you don't care the least bit and it doesn't affect you in the least bit, why do you keep going? You can inform people, stand up for your opinion as much as you want, but no matter how harsh and intellegent you are you will never be the one responsible for the person's final decision. It is called influence.
What you have displayed here is a matter of fact versus preference, where in your opinion the facts and benefits are more significant than people's preference. Well I have some news, hopefully your feelings won't get hurt big boy, but you've failed to convince everyone that your way is the best way, and that will never, ever, happen. Maybe dogs overall have more benefits than using the cane. Maybe it is more safe to use a dog than a cane. But to some people that is not what matters. They have what is called preference based what is comfortable to them, and they do not go through every single aspect of everything to weigh the benefits and hinderances. Does that make them incompetent dangerous travelers in this instance and lesser of people?
Next. It was fortunate that another user who uses a guide dog was moved out of harm's way, if it was harm, but it seems as though the scenarios might have been a bit over dramatized. Perhaps, you were going off of what people have told you about the street cleaner, construction site, etc. But keep in mind, people tend to make things worse than they really are in order to scare/intimidate you. It isn't a reason to feel backed in to a corner and feel as though you need to consider limiting your self-reliability. And I don't care what people think, but it seems as though guide dog users are less confident in themselves because they feel like they can put more reliability on the dog. Talk about a more hazardous mind set for traveling, that is certainly one to have. The denial is coming I know it, but that is my belief and it will take some hard core convincing to make me think otherwise.
So there you have it. We are all adults as Cody says and I completely agree with that.. Hopefully though, you realize that there really is no point in trying to convince a brick wall to fall down because it won't happen no matter what you say.
I should clarify, I meant a lot of dog users, and I am not talking about every single dog user since we are getting real technical here.
Cody, as I've stated earlier, I don't have the time nor energy to keep talking to those brick walls of yours. just as you don't care what mobility aids are used by us, I don't care to continuously waste my time here.
I'm for once backing down cause I know nothing I, or anyone else says, for that matter, will do a damn bit of good.
I've stated my case, and I've also said that others have articulated my feelings on this subject quite well. that's clearly not enough for you, Cody, but that's fine. you're a big boy, and will have to get used to the fact that some of us actually learn when to stop, and don't enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing.
Rock on, Chelsea. I'm glad you knew when to back out. I guess I didn't,in a way.
Another trend I'd like to point out for the rest of you before I go. Ever notice how on certain subjects, or with certain board members, once a topic catches their eye, it gets derailed? Personal attacks, high-handedness, double standards galore and gross logical oversight begins to rule the day, and one by one the former contributors find other things to do. It ends up turning into a single supposedly victorious person still championing a slain cause, or turns into two or three people quibbling back and forth to the detriment of the community. I'll apologize for my hand in that, right here and now, but I think my reputation on most other boards should speak for itself. Topics don't die when I show up. People don't automatically get upset when I show up and state my opinion. Oh, I've ruffled feathers and I'll probably do it again; I'm an opinionated guy and I can be sharp at times. But I think there is something to be said for harmful members of a community who need to be discouraged from harming it further. I think I have discerned the best way to do that hereafter. Ignoring what you cannot change and can't be bothered wrestling with.
I fully realize that I'm not going to change minds. I'm not here to change everyone's mind. I'm here for the enjoyment of discussion. You can't do that if everyone simply sits back and says nothing for fear of ruffling feathers.
As for derailing topics. Its called evolution of conversation. If you want every post to simply answer the topic at hand and end, each board post would be maybe five posts long. Maybe in your world that works for you. luckily for people who enjoy debate and realistic conversation, we don't live in your world. We live in this one, where topics evolve. I hope you enjoy your stay in this world.
I don't use a guide dog because I shouldn't. I know this from experience:
Ever since I learned of their existence I'd wanted a guide dog. When I received one about five years ago it made traveling feel as though I were floating down a rapidly flowing river. I couldn't reach out and touch any of those landmarks I so depended on to get my bearings, and when I asked my trainer questions like, "how do I know when to tell my dog to make the turn if I can't tell when I'm coming up on the right sidewalk?" she responded with something like, "I dono...everyone else figures it out eventually."
I travel by learning routes; I can't think of any other way to do it unless the new location is located close to one or more familiar places. So I've got an algorithm which must be followed in order to make it successfully from point A to point B. This algorithm comes with certain error-checking abilities - if I get disoriented I know which way I've likely veered for example and can make my way through several branches of "if I sense x then make correction y" thoughts if necessary until I've corrected myself. Everyone said I'd do great with a dog, but once I had one I was lost more often than I ever was with a cane. All it took was one little distraction, one sleight turn of that dog's nose that meant a tiny deviation in the route. Someone on this thread used the analogy of flying an aircraft to describe the difference between using a dog and a cane. Well have you ever heard what happens if you head off just one degree in the wrong direction? As for being able to go to places like malls with your dog that you couldn't navigate with a cane, I'm disoriented in malls with a dog, a cane, or a human. If I don't have a clear set of steps to get from where I am now to my objective, and the sensory information I receive is jumbled, overwhelming, and almost useless, then I'm disoriented, and I probably won't place myself in that situation unless I absolutely must and am with a human being I can trust to lead me in and out safely.
Anyone who knows me well is aware that I don't give up easily, but after about two years I had to make the decision to return him. Out of fear I was traveling less and less and would only walk to a select few places. This was unhealthy for me and unfair to the dog. Giving Usher back was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. I still have the occasional dream about him. Fortunately his school was able to place him with someone else who had worked dogs before, so I imagine things worked out. Still, I wish I hadn't had to go through that. Recently, I made several google searches in an attempt to find any stories like mine. Was there anyone out there who used a cane reasonably well but whose world was so sense-based that he/she was unable to fully adapt when those senses were tampered with? ... Nothing, not even on the guide dog school sites. Shouldn't they give you a huge list of pros and cons and not just pros?
Ouch, That must have been such a hard ordeal to go through. I'm glad you eventually made the right decision for yourself, though, hard as it may have been.
Fact is, you're not alone in having tried a guide dog and found it was really the cane that was better for your travel needs. After all, some dog users really do switch back to the cane eventually, and for a few different reasons. You're not the only one.
As for training the dog to turn at specific sidewalks or other landmarks on a route I've actually heard that what a lot of users do is breakout the cane the first few times they're working that dog with the route. So if you cross a street and then know you have to find, let's say the third sidewalk on the left, you can stop the dog once you get to the side of the street you have to be on and tell them to heel. Then you can walk them on the leash while you count sidewalks with the cane. Then when you reach the sidewalk you need to turn onto you can go back to using the dog. The same with finding specific doorways while walking along a wall of a building. If you do this enough times and are consistent the dog will eventually pick it up and you won't even have to break out the cane. It may depend on the particular dog how many times it takes for them to get the hang of it but in many cases I've heard it doesn't take long at all. I've asked that very question of guide dog users many times to see how they dealt with that. I can't help but think it's sad that a guide dog instructor of all people could be so disinclined to at least offer you some suggestions about that. I just know that if I ever got a guide dog that would be what I would try to do.
Voyager that took courage, and lots of it. Not just to go through with the decision but even to write about on the Internet in a community whose judgmental attitudes make most fundamentalists come off as downright permissive.
My hat's off to you.
voyager, although I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must have been to make such a difficult decision, I certainly applaud you for it. I'm glad you had the guts to do what was right for you, regardless of who had or has negative criticisms to throw at you.
Hi Voyager,
guide dog schools' websites won't have a pro/con list; however, some of them do have a readiness checklist for prospective students. One of the things I saw on a checklist was sacrificing having the constant tactile feedback from one's environment.
The transition from cane to dog is extremely difficult for some, and easy for others. There are people out there who hate canes, who rarely use them or use them off and on, and people who don't consider their cane necessary when it comes to mobility. On the other hand, there are people who have clung to their canes as long as they've been able to use one, and people who don't feel safe or confident traveling without one. I fell into the second group. Leaving the house without my cane was like walking out the door naked. Transitioning from cane travel to guide dog travel was more difficult and frustrating than I had imagined. It was easy at the school, traveling routes the dog had traveled a million times, but routes that were unfamiliar to me. When I got home, it was hard. I didn't see how I could teach a dog a route that I knew, and still let him guide me. I had massive trust issues, even after I had shown my dog a route several times by just heeling and using my cane. There was just all that tactile feedback that I didn't have, and I was constantly shorelining and teaching my dog landmarks just so I could check his work and would know if we ever got off track. Sometimes, I distrusted him, even when he was right. The first 3-4 months of having him was a fight.
I felt like at the school, there wasn't enough emphasis on learning alternative ways to get tactile feedback. My O&M instructor helped me with this when I returned to my college campus. She always coached me "reach out with your arm," or "Feel forward with your feet." She knew there were trust issues, and she helped me through that by saying so much more than just "follow your dog." She had worked with cane travelers and guide dog travelers, and so she was much more familiar and experienced in working with a number of clients transitioning from cane to dog.
The trainers at guide dog schools, at least the one I attended, are not and have not been mobility instructors. They have no idea about what it is like to travel using a cane, or what the cane means to a cane traveler, and so they are clueless about the emotional and physical transition from cane to dog. So if you ask a guide dog class instructor for mobility tips, they are not likely to provide helpful advice. They can tell you how to care for your dog, work your dog and trouble shoot if your dog has problems. They can't tell you how to locate places, objects, and turns. You're just supposed to know how, figure it out, or have a professional O&M instructor help you.
Sword of Sapphire, I'm rather shocked that guide dog schools don't generally have mobility instructors. I've heard it said that if you can't travel confidently or competently with a cane, you're probably not ready for a guide dog, so it would seem to make sense that potential guide dog trainers would at least know something about how to teach cane travel. But how can one judge anything about cane travel when they've never done it or had much experience using one? Very interesting. Are there some guide dog schools that are better than others where this is concerned?
Johndy, a lot of guide dog schools have field representatives that they send out to prospective students homes to do interviews. During these interviews, the field rep watches and records the student walk a familiar route. From what I have gathered, the field reps are the ones who are familiar with cane travel. The guide dog schools also require some proof that you've had O&M training, which is usually a letter of reference or reference form completed by the former or current O&M instructor.
The only school I know of that has both O&M instructors and guide dog instructors is Leader Dog in Southeast Michigan. Leader Dog offers an accelerated mobility program just in case anyone ever feels that they need to learn or brush on up on their cane mobility skills. I don't think there is another guide dog school that offers such a program. This AMP is for anyone, whether they want a guide dog or not. There are people who have transitioned from this program into getting a guide dog at that school, and there are people who have attended this program so that they could work toward getting a guide dog elsewhere.
There are probably other schools with O&M instructors on staff, but I do not know what they are.
Voyager, I recently returned a guide and went back to cane travel. This was due to changes in my circumstances and invironment and not my desire to use a dog but the why of it really doesn't matter. It's a very difficulty decision to make and I aplaude you for having the courage to do what was right for you and your dog, and for writing about it here.
For me personally, I prefer traveling with a dog over a cane because for the most part, travel is smoother for me with a dog. However, when traveling with my dogs, I do admit to having had difficulty orienting myself to new places. My first guide, Digby, was amazing though once we'd gone somewhere once, he remembered it.
When I went to Vegas a few weeks ago, it was my first time to go without Digby. I must say, I missed him grately. He did some of his best work in big places like hotels and casinos. I loved how he could locate elivators, doors, escalators, stairs, and other landmarks.
Currently, my life circumstances don't warrant having a guide dog but I'm hopeful that in the future, like when the kidlet graduates and we move somewhere else, that I'll be able to get another dog.
Thanks for that info. I know a lot of people tout Guiding Eyes for the Blind, which is where some friends of mine got the majority of their dogs, as the best there ever was.
Others say the same about Guide Dogs, Seeing Eye, Fidelco or any of the others out there.
I’ve had my girl home for about a month now, and working with her is one of the most heart-warming experiences I’ve had. It’s just so amazing to me when we go on a walk for the first time, and on the way back, she turns into our driveway, even without me checking or prompting—she just remembers. Each time she stops at a step for me, or listens to a command, I feel such a rush of pride in her intelligence. I know that sounds really kitchy.
Voyager, kudos to you making the right decision. I wasn’t sure how I’d transition to a dog, and believe me, I desperately wished there was some way I could practice with a guide dog before taking the plunge into the real thing. But you just can’t get the same feeling with a practice dog that you get with your real bonded partner. Deciding to do what was best for you is a huge show of courage, and like Leo said, posting it here was awesome.
For me, the appeal is that I don’t get bogged down with all the tactile feedback I get with a cane. Each traveler is different, and has different modes. Some people need landmarks, and some people can gage an open space just by listening and feeling the ambience. If you’re in the second group, a guide dog will work out better for you. The Seeing Eye, where I went, does have a few former O and M instructors on staff. In fact, my instructor used to be an O and M instructor at Perkins.
I do wish schools gave more lectures on common sense handling of dogs. I mean, I know part of your responsibility as a user is to know dogs and have a sense of their psychology, but it just frightens me how little of that you get during training.
It’s true, dogs aren’t these magical creatures that learn where you want to go on the first try. Teaching my dog to walk across the parking lot straight to the dumpster is proving a bit of a challenge. She’ll do it about 70 percent of the time. The other 30, she wanders past it and I have to flail my way back to it and show her again that it is a happy good place.
As a practical example of the appeal, take this story. I was in Rite Aid with my boyfriend. We’d checked out, and were ready to go outside. Normally, I’d have flailed around with my cane, hitting the counter, or people, or displays, searching for the mat to my right, or listening for the door. With the dog, all I had to do as I walked forward was say, “Right right… outside” and she went. To my mind, directing a dog looks a lot more graceful, confident, and competent than walking with a cane. It feels to me like I’m projecting this image of, “Yes, I know where I’m going, look at me telling this dog where to go.”
I’m going to stop rambling now. But as a new guide dog user, I can say that while there are distinct challenges, and while a dog is certainly not right for everyone at all, they are incredible animals. And as for the tool/partner debate, not to bring up that flame war again, I think they’re a little of both. While they are live, loving companions, they also need to be kept sharp, focused, and used often. It’s a constant upkeep of obedience, authority, respect, and love.
*awwwww*
I have a friend who has had trouble getting the right dog for her. I think this is the third dog she tried and it finally worked out for her. Have any of you guide dog users had to try out more than one dog until you found the right one? What variables have you found to be important in picking a dog, and what have you found to not work? I think this is important to bring up if this is the case, that there are different personalities or variables you need to consider when picking a dog, because I guess if the first one doesn't work out for you maybe that isn't the end all be all.
You shouldn't pick a dog, and I don't know of any schools that allow you to. You're matched with a dog. You don't pick it. Unless she's home training, which personally I'm against.
Yeah. I have heard of that happening occasionally, where the first dog a school picks for a person doesn't work out but they eventually did find one. Wih me they'd have to find a dog that would work well with my rather small stature LOL.
Ah, thanks. I'm sure that's what she meant. She went to the training school out in California.
I'm curious, Cody: what do you have against home training?
On the topic of O and M instructors at guide dog schools, I know that GDB requires their trainers to have a masters in O and M before they can become Master Instructors. At least that was how it was when I went in 2011. I think that they have at least one Master Instructor per class but not sure about that.
I was so excited for my first dog 3 years ago. Everything went fine until I moved out of my small town in to a huge place called DC. It was disaster for us both for about 6 months. I had no clue where to go, my dog wasn't trained on escalators, and we both had to navigate this huge thing called the subway. I must say though, that I truly would never change that time for anything because if it was not for my boy, I don't think I could make it here walking independently. In saying that, I don't think I will get another one after Saunders retires because my job is now a desk one and I don't think it is fair to make him lay down all day. As far as attension, I truly believe I have gotten loads more attension with my cane than my dog especially when asking for directions on how to get somewhere. I guess people still think that our dogs tell us where to go haha.
With something as important as guide dogs, and something which deal with the public so much, I think it should be left to professionals. I don't think someone whose a hobbyist should be training dogs that have to deal with very hard situations like that.
Oh, by home training, do you mean that owners should not train their own dogs, or that schools should not send trainers out to train a new user with their dog in their home area? I'm really confused. When we do home training here in Alberta, a new user is introduced to the dog and, if the match seems right, trainers do sessions with the user in their home area so that the skills the team learn are directly applicable to the user's lifestyle. I'm not sure if you're talking about something else when you speak of home training.
I'm fairly sure home training refers to a person who trains guide dogs on their own, outside the specific jurisdiction of a school.
I can see Cody's point on it, too, though I think it's one of those areas where it's a bad idea about eighty percent of the time. The other twenty percent of the time, the home trainer takes on a responsibility and handles it beautifully. It doesn't exactly take a four-year degree from a prestigious university to work with dogs after all. You can't just wing it every time, but if you've had a little experience, are observant and are willing to formulate a good working plan and then stick to it, you've probably got a half-decent shot at training a pretty good guide dog. The trick is to know what you're doing, and sadly that doesn't always happen.
Okay, well, around here, when we say home training we mean the school comes to us, not the other way around. Has nothing to do with owner-trained dogs, which I don't think are even legally recognized. And I agree, Shepherdwolf, most of the time it sounds like a bad idea, but there's nothing saying it could never work, especially if said trainer has worked guide dogs for a long time and has a lot of experience with them.
Sorry, I meant to say owner training, not home training.
hi all and very interesting in the stories i'm hearing and I remember my dog and I were a good match and his memory was real good like i'd only have to show him a route once or twice and he'd know it and I remember when bringing him to school and he'd not heard the bells ring before but knew what they ment after the first couple of days which amazed me, smiles.
I have to agree that you were very brave to write about what you went through on here and also making the decision as i know it isn't a easy one to make but good on you for doing the right thing for yourself and the dog, smiles.
As I am right now in the transition between cane and guide dog (school has matched me with a dog... yay!) I am by turns super excited and a bit nervous (terrified?)
HR and SOS in particular, thank you so much for your articulate, rational words regarding the transition period between cane and guide dog... it helps make me feel a bit less abnormal.
For those who ahve chosen for whatever reason that guide dogs are not a good fit, especially after having toughed it out and realized that it just doesn't work for you, thanks so much for your candor as well... it takes guts!
Kate
congratulations and how awesome, smiles.
totally awesome.
I am resurrecting this topic now because I found some useful information with new guide dog handlers and dogs. The trainer has been gone for about a week, and my dog and I are still figuring things out... it's nice to know that there is nothing wrong with me or my dog, but that we are working out some of the kinks in our partnership... thank you
Kate
p.s. I have my own awesome guide dog story! Yesterday Jenny and I were walking to work, along a familiar sidewalk, when she paused at an obstacle in the pathway. It was a very big, VERY LOUD vacuum truck (like one of those furnace cleaning trucks) parked in the driveway and across the sidewalk. She tried to take me on the grass to go around it, but when she made the turn to pass it she realized there was no room around it. So we went back to the siewalk, backtracked, and went between two parked cars and walked 20 feet along the street, between two more parked cars, back on to the sidewalk. Could I have done it with a cane? Yes... but not nearly as well!
awe so awesome, smiles.
Greetings, all and sundry.
A little late to the party, I realize, but SensuallyNaturallyLiving4Today's posts (Great Lord but that's an awfully long screen name!), and the stance they took that "eyes are safer than not-eyes, bar none, no exceptions", brought to mind a little incident that happened to me once upon a time in Middle Tennessee. When I was a wee lad, not much more than six or seven, I was always indoctrinated that you should accept help, even if it was unneeded, to benefit the blind people that may need it after you (that was also in Middle Tennessee, but that's not the incident I'm talking about). Anyway, fast-forward to a dozen years later, wen I was going from my class to the post office to send off a check to pay my credit card bill, and along came this nice lady who offered to help me. So, hearing my mother's words echoing down from the past, I let this woman, with working eyes, walk me across the street.
Or ... well, halfway across the street, as I rather suddenly found myself having landed on my fundament in the middle of the road, after feeling quite the impact in or near my posterior region. The offending object, oddly enough, was a Ford Probe, and the jokes about probes and posteriors, I'm sure, just write themselves if you're into those types of jokes. Now, had this Probe been going faster, working eyes or no working eyes, I'd probably have joined the choir invisible. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I tend to question anyone that attempts to tell me, with a straight face, that having all five senses makes you significantly safer, and having access to proxy sight will, 100% of the time, keep you safe and secure. In my nearly forty years on this planet, having travelled on three continents, the only time I've had anything that could, at a higher velocity, have been a brush with death was when I was hanging off the arm of an intelligent, fully sighted human being with all of their faculties.
As to the dog vs. cane question, I must concede that I see the same trend towards people with a nigh-religious opinion on the issue being dog users (see how I'm not giving an opinion?). Further, the trend I'm seeing is that the greater the delta in confidence between the person's pre-dog vs. post-dog life, the more fervently they preach the benefits of the dog (I can't get the same data on pre-cane vs. post-cane life, as one usually has a cane put in their hands fairly young these days).. This has, of course, just been my totally unscientific observation based on responses I've gotten from people whenever this topic comes up. However, as far as an assumption I've seen here on a couple of occasions and throughout my time on this planet, that having access to working eyes, be they human or dog, will always keep you safe? Or that people with the benefit of eyes, proxy or otherwise, never or seldom get lost? Pure, unadulterated male bovine fecal matter. I could give more examples, like the fellow that had to find the Amtrak station with his GPS whilst his sighted wife was completely lost, or the guy that was ridiculed when his GPS hardware was slightly off, so, as a test, he let his sighted companions find their own way next time (that was a lovely scenic tour of Washington State, that was), but the last time I did that, I stirred up a hive of reactionaries that didn't like having their assumptions that their lack of sight made them, by nature, inferior, challenged.
LOL. What was the lady's reaction?
First, let me just say that there is nothing at all wrong with using a cane. People should use whatever feels more comfortable and works best for them.
For me though, a guide dog works best. I do feel more confident with my dog, for travel is smooth, almost instinctual. We work together smoothly and I feel more aware of what is going on around me. I think this is because when I use a cane I have to concentrate more on my immediate area, so my attention cannot spread out. I can also talk to friends, have a conversation on the phone or even listen to music or a book when working with my dog and I do not fear running into something or getting lost. My posture is better working with a dog than when I use a cane too. I have noticed that people talk to me more when I am with my dog than when I use a cane and people seem to grant me more respect.
And of course, the bond I have with my dog is invaluable. I have learned much about the canine mind from my dog, about how dogs think, feel and communicate. For me, Faith is not a tool, she is the best friend I could ever ask for. She senses when I am sad, shares my joy when I am happy and is with me through good times and bad. She has never and will never betray me. She understands me and I her and when we work together it feels like we are one creature, as crazy as that may sound. She is not a mobility device, she is my working partner and companion, a close family member. Now, my experience is not the same as everyone elses. Not all guide dog users view their guide dogs as I do, as different from, but equal in value to themselves. In addition, a cane is easier in some ways. Your cane will not get sick, nor will it die. Your cane is easily portable and people won't try to pet it. You won't have to worry about picking up after your cane, brushing your cane or generally caring for your cane at all. It's what works for each person. I am just a much better dog user than I am a cane user.
i agree with what you have said and I've had the experience with both and have noticed I've felt much safer with a dog than what i do with using the cane but just can't afford the cost of having a dog but have thought about possibly getting another one because of concerns about my safety and I'd be able to cross roads with out having to have help though my mobility isn't the issue.
One admittedly rather silly thing I've always wondered, and this applies to both pets and service animals, is what our pets or service animals think of us as. What I mean is we as humans gave names to all the animals, cat, dog, bird, fish, whatever. I've always wondered if animals have their own names for us in their minds. Maybe it's the sort of thing Saphira does in the Inheritance Cycle, referring to humans as two-foot round-ears, that sort of thing.
I've often wondered what goes through a dog's mind, especially my dog. lol I
swear, she seems to understand me when I speak to her in complete sentences
sometimes.
They're certainly smart, smarter I'm sure than a lot of folks give them credit for.
that is so true, smiles.