[Cagdu] on schools and assemblies

[Michael Hingson]

Hi,

 

I suggest it is appropriate to contact the guide dog school about their
puppy raiser.  The schools need to take responsibility for some training of
their raisers.

 

The kind of comments you cite here are inappropriate and unacceptable.

 

You also could talk to the principal and see if there might be any
opportunity to conduct a better training session.  Treat this as an
opportunity to educate.

 

 

Mike Hingson

 

The Michael Hingson Group, INC.

"Speaking with Vision"

Michael Hingson, President

(415) 827-4084

info at michaelhingson.com

To order Michael Hingson's new book, Thunder Dog, and check on Michael
Hingson's speaking availability for your next event please visit:

www.michaelhingson.com

 

Congratulations to Roselle for winning the title of American Hero Dog, 2011.
Please visit http://www.herodogawards.org <http://www.herodogawards.org/>
to participate in the 2012 American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards
contest and to learn about the American Humane Association.

 

To purchase your own portrait of Roselle painted by the world's foremost
animal artist, Ron Burns, please visit http://www.ronburns.com/roselle

 

To learn about the KnfbReader Mobile please visit:

http://knfbreader.michaelhingson.com

 

 

From: cagdu-bounces at nfbcal.org [mailto:cagdu-bounces at nfbcal.org] On Behalf
Of Ken Volonte
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2012 2:26 PM
To: Cagdu
Cc: Gary Wunder
Subject: [Cagdu] on schools and assemblies

 

This morning, I went to an elementary school for an assembly of
Kindergarteners and first graders.  I was invited to this function by one of
the teachers who was a guide dog puppy raiser.  I sat horrified as this
person explained how blind people couldn't do anything without the
assistance of their guide dogs.  "That's why I'm raising guide dog puppies
and I'll do it for the rest of my life", she said.  In short, I was just
there as a prop as this raiser did an infomercial for herself and, just
incidentally, for guide dog school.  The next horrible thing that happened
was her instruction for the children to close their eyes.  "Are you scared?"
she asked.  "Yeeeees!" they all answered.  "Well that's how a blind person
feels all through the day, so you should thank God you can see."  We're not
through yet.  Next, she had me work my dog through a series of obstacles and
was very upset when he returned by a different way than he had gone.  We had
headed for the exit and then had come back to my chair.  The worst thing was
when she picked out two hapless little kids and had her puppy "guide" them
through the obstacles.  Remember this was a puppy, a cute little six month
old black lab puppy who had behaved flawlessly, despite long ear splitting
whistles of very high frequency feed back.  Now I am glad to go and speak to
school kids.  I have even shared lunch in the cafeteria in my time; but this
debacle was too much.  When it was my time to speak, I congratulated the
kids on how brave they were and told them that blindness was normal for me.
That ended my time.  It ended the whole assembly As I said before, I'm glad
to speak at schools, but next time, I'll only address an assembly if I am
invited by the school principle or other administrator.  Kids are so much
smarter than adult puppy raisers.  That's why I liked it better when it was
a 4-h project.  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://nfbcal.org/pipermail/cagdu/attachments/20120309/fc1218d0/attachment.html