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- more reflections on ITD - June 30, 2023
- On travel while at ITD: reflections after day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
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- Job Descriptions, Inclusivity, and Equity for People with Disabilities - October 15, 2022
- Traveling without a Guide Dog: Experience with Cane and Walker - October 14, 2022
- Disability and Church, Intersection - June 11, 2022
- Review: When Chronic Pain and Illness Take Everything Away - June 11, 2022
- Grammar and Style Resources for Writers - June 9, 2022
Today Pepper and I worked as partners with another classmate and her dog. We walk several blocks, then turn and walk one block over, walk back around the blocks we have just walked and return home. Essentially we are making a giant rectangle. Along the way, we negoatiate lots of things: different types of intersections with stop signs, one way streets, turn lanes, etc. We get a little of everything. One street has cafes and stores where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic.
My partner and I both got what is called a “traffic check,” meaning a car turned in front of us in the middle of an intersection we were crossing. Drivers sometimes tell me that they think the traffic law means they are supposed to stop and wait for me to go. If the light is green for you, you must follow your traffic light. I depend on the sound of your car to interpret what is happening with traffic around me. If you stop, I will interpret that the light is red. Please don’t stop when you see me at an intersection. That is not what “right of way” meand. It only means that if I have already stepped into the street you must allow me to pass. My responsibility is to interpret traffic safely and not to abuse that right of way.
Today, instructors staged distractions with young dogs so that we could see how our dogs would respond to dogs in the community. There are often situations in which we encounter other dogs who are not under control on the street. Sometimes other dogs don’t respond well to our dogs and our dogs can be very traumatized by these encounters. As a side note, I will request that if you own a dog, please teach it some basic obedience: come, sit, stay, down. Especially, please teach it not to charge the door when we arrive to visit you. Our dogs may one day be permitted to play with your dogs. But all the dogs must first be able to behave nicely together while we visit and talk to each other. My dog will always be first a working dog, and if I allow her to play she must be ready to return to work at any time. If she is ever traumatized by any encounter by another dog, or becomes too wound up by her play with another dog, she can become unable to work effectively for me.
On today’s route, Pepper did beautifully with some traffic checks, walked while I conversed with my instructor and told funny stories, varied her pace so that I could exercise and then stroll, walked past the annoying puppy, walked around a barracade that was set up to test her, tolerated big trucks barreling past her at street corners, and strolled past a street musician while I waved and told him his music was beautiful. Right now she is having a well-deserved afternoon nap. I am resting my feet. I think my walking totatl today is over four miles.
