Christina: [00:00:00] Welcome to the taking the lead podcast, where we empower people to be unstoppable. I'm Christina, Hapner with my co-host Leslie Hoskins in Timothy Cuneo. And today we're going to have a bit of a shorter episode where we're going to just chat about a topic that we've been asked about, but I first have to tell you guys so working out later, dog, a lot of people think we all know how to train a dog.
Um, I do not. And my dog is a bit of a wild child this morning. Um, so he gets so excited in the morning when I feed him, well, I have wood floor. And so when he gets excited, he'll like wag his tail. And I don't know what he did, but he jumped in like slid across the floor this morning. And I was like, oh my God.
This, this dog, like the energy he's eight and he has energy of a puppy. People think he's a puppy.
Leslie: And I'm like,
Christina: our guide dogs are a leader. Dogs would not act this way. [00:01:00] And I try and tell him that and he just doesn't get it. But it's my own fault because I, I I've raised him. You know, I raised him to be.
Oh, wild
Leslie: child. Well, I have to tell you many of the guide dog mobility instructors laugh at me with my dog. I have a very small, uh, five pound dog and she has certainly trained me. If you'd like to go that route with it. She is fully capable of going upstairs, like fully capable of going up steps. If I'm at work and I have her on leash, she doesn't no problem anywhere else.
She will not go upstairs. So. MI trained in, well, our family to pick her up, we carry her up every set of stairs. So we take her outside, she goes down, then plop, plop, plop fine. And then we have to go outside and pick her up and carry her up the stairs. And I have seen many DDMI, I've talked to many people about it and asked and they just laugh and say that she has trained me because if I left her long enough, she would [00:02:00] eventually figure it out.
But. Nope, not in my house. Mila gets carried everywhere. She Watts. And also though I should know, she fully can jump up on a couch or on our bed, which is a large, she
Christina: does. Have you wrapped around her Paul? Yes. Yeah. It's all right. Right.
Leslie: Exactly. Exactly.
Christina: They give you those puppy eyes and you're just you just sink and you're like, I'll do whatever you.
Leslie: Yeah, basically. So I don't know about everybody working at liter dog, uh, being able to train dogs, but I will say most dogs that later dog have trained their humans quite well as well. It goes both ways, but yeah. Speaking of dogs today, we're actually going to talk about guide dogs, go figure. Right. And what do guide dogs do?
What do they do? What don't they do? Okay. I have
Christina: to start with something though. Timothy, you're going to laugh at this. I kind of thought when I first came to leader, dog and other people thought [00:03:00] this too, that the guide dogs can read the stop signs and like the stoplights.
Timothy: No, they cannot, you, oh, I'd be in trouble if they could. But now I have to know where I'm going. Uh, like I said before, uh, like that's why I use the Victor reader Trek gives me like a 20. Signal on the track saying you got to stop a four way, stop coming up. And so then I've got to say, okay, glacier find, find the curb and she'll stop at that curb.
But if I didn't say that she there's a possibility she would walk out, you know? So I've got to know both of us are working as a team. What I got to take care of and she's got her responsibility and I've got my responsibilities. So no, they don't know what a stop sign is. So I've got to know where the stop sign is.
Leslie: Yeah, we do hear that question all the time. Like, oh, the guide dog, you know, the dog tells you when to cross the street. And unfortunately that's really just not the case. Totally. Up to the handler to [00:04:00] approach the intersection, determine how it's controlled. And what I mean by that is, is it stops. Like controlled.
Is that a yield, all of that good stuff. And then the handler, the person decides the best time to cross based on their, um, their training with intersections. Well, if they can't read the
Christina: science, then what do they do? I'm sure there's somebody wondering that out there right now. Right?
Leslie: So. Too, we'll say two main responsibilities.
They do other things. Of course, these dogs are very intuitive and smart, but their two main tasks are one to stop clients at curbs like Timothy mentioned, and to, to guide people around obstacles and navigate kind of through, uh, parking benches and meters and all those good, all those good things that kind of pop out of nowhere.
So those are their two main tasks stopping at curves and guiding around apps. Um, of course we do hear from clients on other things that they, [00:05:00] they do, um, and that they learn. And another task that they teach is find that Timothy E do you use the find the, well, I'd
Timothy: tell her to find the, uh, like I say, I call it a pole when I like I'm going up to those push buttons to cross the street, you know?
The thing. And I tell her, find the pole or I'll tell her, find her bench. Cause we there's a specific bench. We sit down when we go downtown and she, when she sees it, I tell her and she finds me a seat. When I go to the doctor, all I gotta do is say, find, and I'd tell her simple things, find the counter. She does that.
Or if we're going to the pharmacy, I tell her, find the line and she'll take me to the back of the line. I mean, this is stuff that I had to do when I came back home and I taught her a little bit on my.
Leslie: That's awesome. Absolutely. You know, what's funny about the find the, I always hear the guide dog mobility instructors say, you know, that you can say, find the door and they'll take you most likely to adore, but it might not be the correct door, you know?
So depending on where you're at and how [00:06:00] comfortable or knowledgeable your dog is of that environment, they may not take you to the correct door or the correct chair, or funny enough, an empty chair. So he's saying fine, the chair. You know, there could be a circumstance when your dog would take you to a dare.
So just to reminder, always check that seat first clear the space
Christina: makes sense. You know,
Leslie: what are we going to do?
Christina: She's
Leslie: dying. Laughing. Too funny. So some other things that the dogs do, they can help maintain a straight line of travel. So, you know, if you [00:07:00] don't have vision, it's really hard to travel straight sometimes because what is straight, if you have no, uh, sidewalk to follow or a line in front of you or a direction in which you're trying to travel.
So that can be difficult. Traveling straight without vision and guide dogs can really help with that. They are trained to walk you down the middle of the sidewalk. They're also trained to go from curb to curb. So they're going to go down one curb and cross the street to the other up curb. Um, so they do help with that straight line travel as well, which is a really nice perk.
They
Timothy: also help people. If they got little bounce issues, they keep you bounced a little bit. So I've, I've when it was snowed here. Uh, I kind of slipped a little bit and if I hadn't had her. I would have fell on. You might have, you know, what helped me keep my, keep me up. So I know there are some blind people that has balance issues.
Those dogs are great about that.
Leslie: Yeah, that we have sometimes in the past trained dogs to assist with balance. And there are like special harnesses that you can get for somebody who really does have a lot of balance [00:08:00] concerns. Um, and that's kind of few and far between, I know it leader dog, but it is something that we've explored in the past, which is another reason why we asked for those videos and the application process is so that we can try to find a dog who can handle those types of things and really make a good match.
So that's a really
Christina: good point. I mean, Even though they can't read science, they can do all a whole lot of stuff. But I mean, Leslie, you're going to be so excited and I'm saying this, but that's why it's so important that someone has orientation and mobility because once they get their dog into their home environment, then they can show their dog, those places.
And the dog will remember.
Leslie: Exactly. Yeah. You want to be confident in your routes at home. So when you bring your new guide dog home, you're confident when you're telling them, you know, Juno left you, right. Do you know, find the curb, all of those different things. So that just like Timothy mentioned, you're working as a team.
It is really, I don't even want to say 50, 50. It's like 100, 100 everybody's giving a hundred percent to make a good team. Mostly what's due. [00:09:00] Oh, Juno. I do say that all the time and I forget, we need to explain that. So Juno is, first of all, just the term we use all the time for, um, like a dog walk experience.
So for example, if I'm working with a client and I want to provide a simulated dog walk of like what it would be like to walk with a guide dog, we would do a Juno walk is what we'd call it. Um, and where I would use an empty harness and kind of hold onto the front of the harness and per simulate being the dog and the handler would hold onto the heart.
We do these in makeshift ways. Sometimes we'll use, um, different contraptions that we've built out of PVC pipe or fold up a cane, uh, OEMs in the field get really creative. I'm trying to simulate these Juno walks so that clients really understand or get an idea of what it's like to walk with a guide dog, because there's so many differences between cane and guide dog.
And I know we've talked a little bit about those, but, um, you definitely want clients to be prepped and prepared and know what they're getting into before making this. Timothy
Christina: one, you got [00:10:00] glacier. What were you most surprised about what she can.
Timothy: Well, I was just thinking about that. Uh, she has saved me from tripping over so many things.
Uh that's in my path that I didn't want to say, like there could be, uh, uh, some form of, of, of a large limb or something and she just stops. And then I had to figure out why she stopped and that's when you get your cane out and you own, there's a, there's a. Obstacle in front of me and thank God she was there cause I would have fell down and I ain't even happened while I was at leader dog.
Uh, she stopped at some hazardous tape on the concrete. They were doing a lot of construction and it just amazed me that she did that. And so she, these dogs just absolutely take care of you while you're out. And it's just amazing what these dogs have been trained.
Leslie: You know, and we haven't talked about probably their best feature, if you will, that people would argue and that's the companionship.
So of course they do these other tasks and they keep people safe or they help [00:11:00] people travel independently. But most of all, they provide this companionship. They're loving partners that are with you, literally every step of the way.
Timothy: Yes, they are glaciers, probably one of the best dogs I've ever had in my life.
And she shows love to me. And then the rest of the family. And, uh, these dogs are just great around pig people and children, and, uh, it's as a credit to leader dog.
Christina: Yeah. And we can't forget at the end of the day they work, they love to work, but they are still dogs. They are still your family dog and they get play time.
They get to have fun too.
Leslie: Absolutely. They still get to go out and have a great time and they really do help increase confidence. So that's one thing we hear from clients all the time is that yeah, they were good traveler with the cane. They felt pretty good about it, but in how they're traveling with the guide dog, they have a partner, somebody who's in it with them all the time.
Um, and they feel more confident. They're excited to go out and travel. It's also [00:12:00] motivating because now. They know, they have to get their dog out to maintain their skills to practice. So that's really encouraging to get out there and do those routes. Whereas the cane, you can put it in the corner and
Timothy: you're excited to go somewhere because you're, you're, it's like a journey and, and I'm looking forward to going to new Orleans this year and, and other places this year, just me and glacier and.
It just gives us something to look forward to. And, and it's just, it's, it's a challenge and it's exciting. Everyday when I go to the doctor, it's a new adventure together and it's, you know, it's a great experience.
Christina: Yeah. And I mean, the amazing thing too is they're a great companion. All they do is give you love and they don't talk back.
Right.
yeah, exactly. That's what I'm looking for.
Leslie: That's so funny. Oh my gosh. [00:13:00] We should mention too. The all of these services are of course provided free by leader dogs for the blind. So if you, or you know, somebody who could benefit from a guide dog, you can always go to our website and check out more about our guide dog training.
And I will do a little. Uh, tag here or promo for our virtual learning resources that are on our page. Uh, and you can learn more about guide dog readiness and how to prepare if this is something that you're thinking about taking on in your life. Yeah.
Christina: And I think I hear glacier walking around in the
Timothy: background.
She heard, she heard you laugh and now she's got her big, long worm
Christina: and she wants to, yeah. She's like, Hey, they're having fun. I want to have some fun.
Leslie: That's something you really get used to working at leader dog. There are constantly, you know, dogs. You can hear him playing or running the tag, sometimes a bark here and there going up and down the stairs.
Uh it's it's a fun place to work. Yeah. Yeah. You're always surrounded
Christina: by
Leslie: dogs. Yes. Yes. Well, we hope that helped answer some questions about what guide dogs do [00:14:00] we want to thank you so much for listening to the short episode of taking. I'm Leslie Haskins with host Timothy Cuneo and Christina Hepner. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and please join us next time as we continue to dive into the world of blindness.
Christina: And if you'd like to learn more about applying to leader, dog, you can head to leader, dog.org or call us at (888) 777-5332. And don't forget, you can reach us at taking the lead at leader, dog.org. With any questions or ideas. And if you liked today's podcast, make sure to hit subscribe and check us out.
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