Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!snorkelwacker!apple!olivea!oliveb!bunker!wtm From: mattioli@took.dec.com (John R. Mattioli) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Re: GUIDE DOGS Message-ID: <15065@bunker.UUCP> Date: 19 Oct 90 04:24:18 GMT Sender: news@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: mattioli@took.dec.com (John R. Mattioli) Distribution: misc Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 117 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference Index Number: 11195 In article <14871@bunker.UUCP>, mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM (Darin McGrew) writes... > >>1. What can you do with a dog that I can't with ease and speed with my >>cane. I am not unimaginative. I won't even mention the things that >>limit a dog, but is the limit on a cane--thats the limit of the user, as >>you will no doubt say holds for the dog as well. > Hi, An earlier reply here mentioned the fact that no dog owner would ever ask a question like that and therefore you shouldn't get a dog. I don't know if it's true that no dog owner has ever asked questions like that, but you are not a dog owner. I've worked a dog for the past nine years and I can tell you that it has been an experience worth living through! I was a good cane traveler and I consider myself to be a good dog traveler because I gave up some things for a while. For example, I worked my dog very hard for the first year or so. I was still in high school when I got the dog. I had a newspaper route at the time that I walked every day come rain, snow, or baking hot sun. I demanded very good work and behavior from my dog. I needed to do a goo deal of correcting, and that cost me some time, but the pay off has been amazing! At this point I will go anyplace and do anything with my dog. I regularly walk through strange bus/train stations and have often gone through airports. When I went to college (I went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) we got to experience lots of wandering pathes, unusual intersections, strange stairways, irregular buildings, you name it. I was virtrually able to run around the campus (and I do mean run). In short, I found the dog well worth the sacrifices I made on her behalf for the first year or so. But all of that was just theory before I got the dog. I couldn't know that it would be that way. Actually, since my family was never a dog family, I was kind of skeptical. I talked to several people and I asked the same questions and I got the same answers from almost everyone. The answer is rather simple. There are good points and there are bad points and you've got to weigh the good with the bad. For example, take some of the following points: > >- - A guide dog can take you to a curb if you get disoriented while > crossing a street. > This is true. I remember one summer evening in 1984 when I was in Phili at the ACB convention. I'd been out partying all night and I was walking back to my hotel at the ungodly hour of about 3:30am. I was tired and not paying real close attention because the walk was basically a straight line. While crossing one street I did get a bit disoriented and my dog did take me to a curb. The trouble was, it was the wrong curb. Obviously, it's better to be on the wrong curb then wondering down the middle of the street, but it was still rather disorienting. > >- - A guide dog allows my wife to get around without being as > thoroughly familiar with the route as she'd need to be with a > cane. > Also very true. I counted on my dog for a lot of this sort of thing especially at college when I had to find my way around that "maze of twisty little passages all alike." The problem is that even the best dog can get distracted and, if you don't know the route well, it can take you longer to recover. Recovering from mistakes is a problem a person has with a dog or a cane so pick your poison. > >- - A guide dog can sometimes figure out how to get where you want > to go, even when the route you know is blocked or when you've > become disoriented. > This works great when you're in a shopping mall with a sighted person and you're looking for the exit and neither of you know where it is because you've both gotten disoriented while walking around the building. Vessy, and perhaps most dogs, have this thing about exits. If you can get to one from where you are, they'll figure out how. It's a great way to make a believer out of even the most skeptical (like my father). > >- - A guide dog makes a great conversation starter, which can be > very useful if you need to ask someone where you are, or if you > just want to be sociable. > True, but it can also be frustrating to stand at a party and talk dogs with some nice young lady for fifteen minutes. The frustrating part is when you eventually say something like, "My name is John what's yours?" and she says something like, "I'm Sue and it's been great talking to you but I've gotta go now. Bye." If you're wondering what my point is (after all that rambling) it's simply this. Just remember that there's a good side and a bad side to everything you do in your life. Look at the pluses and the minuses, weigh them, and make your decission. Nobody can tell you if a dog is the right way for you to go. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Mattioli Most improved skier (american blind skiers association 1989) and humble to! (DEC E-NET) TOOK::MATTIOLI (UUCP) {decvax, ucbvax, allegra}!decwrl!TOOK.dec.com!MATTIOLI (ARPA) MATTIOLI@TOOK.dec.com MATTIOLI%TOOK.dec.com@decwrl.dec.com (US MAIL) John Mattioli 550 King St. LKG2-2/BB9 Littleton, Ma. 01460