Monday, September 1, 2025
Eeeeeps, I’m like super super super far behind. The plan was to do these like the night of or the morning after, but best plans and all that, 🙂 That’s what happens when you’re with a great group of friends and a training class is awesome, fun, and tiring, lol. It’s a good thing I had like little notes of what happened for each day or I wouldn’t be able to put these entries in now.
Note
This entry has a hot topic for you. If you wish to comment on this topic please keep it respectful. A persons viewpoint is their own and what works best for them.
So, today I learned that there is now a Star Bucks right next door to Leader Dogs, yayayayaya!!! This makes me super super happy. I of course can’t go to it unless I use my annoying cane because Monte and I aren’t a team yet, but Star Bucks. What a great thing to have next door! Right? Of course I’m right, lol.
New thing at leader
Leader Dogs has added in a new thing that I am definitely not a fan of and that is the use of my cane during dog training. I came to leader to get a dog and not to still have to use my cane, unless, unless I need to use it. When I get to guide dog class my annoying cane goes in the closet, in a bag or just thrown somewhere and forgotten about until it’s time to go back home or something.
For our route to Star Bucks we were told that we needed our canes and we were going to heel the dogs on this route. We were to teach the dogs how to find Star Bucks first by going their with our canes.This is something that Leader Dog now wants clients to do with their dogs. Whej learning a route or once we get home, teach the dog sed route with your cane first so they learn it and get comfortable. This is mandatory.
Erm, here is my problem. I don’t feel this part should be mandatory. I do not work with my dog in this way. I do not teach my dog new things in this method.
1, when I’m learning a route with my cane I’m looking for landmarks that a cane will find such as certain painful cracks in the side walk, a certain number of poles I may have just passed to let me know when to turn or any other thigs that may help me in locating clues along my route.
2, I move a lot slower with a cane than I do with a dog. Again due to the fact I need to look for certain landmarks or having to watch for my cane possibly getting stuck in an annoying hole. It has happened.
3, When I am working with my dog, all those landmarks I look for with a cane are not the same. Example, the certain number of poles would not be used. If I had my dog show me all the poles along a route to make sure I get to the right spot it could turn into a pole problem. Cracks in the side walk? The boy I have nowis super careful around those and I may miss that particular one because erm, one too damn many cracks in the side walk or he decides that day to take me around sed crack. I can’t then tell him, no, sorry we need that crack and show him to stop there or something because again this could cause a problem later and we end up stopping at every single crack everywhere.
4, I am a spacial learner. I do a route and get a mental picture in my head of where things are and how much distance I need to go. Sometimes I am spot on and sometimes I’m off just a bit. However, this is how I teach my dog my routes and what I’m doing. I have never had a problem with my dogs learning this way.
I totally understand that there are people out there that have guide dogs that feel comfortable using the cane and dog teach method, but I am not one of them. I do not feel that it is fair to make it mandatory to use a method that is not something you do. I believe like everything else with a client and their dog and working with the new team that the GDMI’s should work with those clients that use the cane teach method first and dog work it after in the way that works for them and the clients that do not use their canes to teach their dogs a route in their way. I mean, they do it for everything else, so why not this as well?
Again, I’m perfectly fine with having my cane with me when I travel because you never know what may happen and you end up needing that cane because your dog gets hurt, eats through the harness and leash or who knows what. But using my cane to teach my dog, no, that I am not in agreement with for my working relationship with my dog.
Ok, now speaking of that dog of mine
Monte and I are doing great. As I mentioned in Saturdays post my boy did absolutely wonderful on our route. He didn’t look for stephanie at all during that football route. However, I was still worried that he would completely turn around and blow all of that out of the water and pull my arm out by looking for her today.
Ha, I was so happy to be proven wrong. Monte did not look for Stephanie again during this route and it was great!
So for this route we went back to the route we first started on which is the Walnut route. The Walnut route is just one big rectangle where we start at the training center and go off to our right so that we’re all going in the same direction. This route also works on left turns or cut backs as guide dog classes call them when you reach the corners. The instructors are spaced along the route just to make sure that we don’t get lost along the way or help us out if we need assistance. So they are not right beside us or close behind us. So for this route I had no idea where Stephanie was hiding, lol. That made it more interesting for me knowing how Monte is with her.
The whole route went perfect until the end. That’s when Mr. Monte decided after crossing our last street corner and instead of turning left like I told him, no no no, he wanted to keep going straight. I finally had to stop and make him turn around, lol. He still didn’t like that idea, but slowly did what I asked of him.
Turns out that corner was where Stephanie was and she was hiding, actually hiding in the bushes. But my Monte boy spotted her anyways, lol.
What a boy I have!
See you next entry. Have an awesome day!
I think as I’ve said before I also didn’t love the whole teach your dog with the cane thing either. I think in my class we did this with a route going to Main Street from the training center but I don’t remember exactly. I also don’t think doing this even though they only make you do it once should be mandatory. I think it shoud be based on the handler and how they want to teach their dogs because some people like it and that’s great but others like me and you don’t do that when teaching our dogs. It just seems like it should be another part of training that is a person to person thing because there are always some differences between what people do in training so this part should be an option. Just like practicing with a long line for example is an option for us college kids or people without fenced in yards.