Guide Dogs General

All posts in the Guide Dogs General category

Me – Public Speaker?

Published 25/10/2011 by Amy
My mum’s friend approached her the other day to see if she would do a talk to a local group that meet up every Tuesday and mum thought it might be interesting if I did the talk instead. I thought about it and decided, well why not sounds like fun. I thought it might be interesting to explain a little bit about my life and about Guide Dogs. So I ran briefly over the idea and it took about 20 minutes and mum thought it was good. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and any props, such as the symbol and long cane, guide dogs ID and Braillepen to pass around while talking about them. I was all set.

The day came, which was today, this afternoon. I was a little anxious but not as much as I expected. I knew it was a low key, informal, flexible type thing so that’s probably why I wasn’t a blob of anxiety ridden jello. They introduced me and my mum, and Ellie of course and I got started.
Ty the local PAT (Pets As Therapy) dog was also there with his owner also called Pat, and we know them and the dogs like each other, they basically slept through the whole thing, till the tea and biscuits were served that is.

I started off by saying that if someone had told me 10 years ago, that today I would have a guide dog and be living fairly independently I would have laughed and not believed them. But I am living proof and it’s ten years later. Ten years ago I was at school sitting in a classroom with a careers advisor, then as now I am completely obsessed with History and love visiting National Trust and English Heritage homes. My dream job was to be one of those people who do tours around the houses, rolling of dates, names and places. I have a pretty good memory, either by having to remember things, or just being me, I have no idea. But I do and this was perfect for me. I just needed a dog or cane to help me get around the houses so I wouldn’t bump into anything and make a fool of myself. I was at a mainstream school at that time and used a symbol cane. The careers lady laughed cruelly and said. If my sight was that bad, I should stop focusing so high and be happy with a call center job where I wasn’t on show, also that I’d never be eligible for a guide dog. I left the room almost in tears and never contemplated a guide dog or a job ever again.

Around 2 years ago I was assigned a ROVI Rehabilitation Officer for Visually Impaired people and they thought me staying at home and not leaving the house unless I was with someone wasn’t healthy for me and I needed to get out and learn independence. I was given a long white cane and a month of training – my life was changed forever, and it prepared me for a guide dog and independence. My dream job is no longer a National Trust tour guide, although that would be pretty awesome and I’d jump at the chance. But having lived through transition, been at rock bottom and come up from it, where I am now, is the best place I’ve ever been and I want to give something back, to help those who are now in transition and being patronized by ill advised careers people. My goal is to be an advocate and a Braille Tutor.

I passed around my Symbol Cane, White Cane, and talked them through the guide dog training and white cane training I did, talked about the harness, the Sam Browne (Sash), my Guide Dogs Owner passport and the Braillepen.

It lasted about 20 minutes and I had amazing feedback from everyone. I’d love to do it again, and they’ve suggested getting on the local speakers circuit and doing local groups, including the WI!!!. I think I have a calling to help others out there and to just bring awareness.
It’s something I feel really strongly about and I’m thankful I had this out of the blue opportunity.

Free Run Day

Published 01/10/2011 by Amy
It’s the weekend! Happy weekend. This means it’s Ellie’s day off and we let her of her lead and she goes crazy!! Because she works all week it’s recommended that you give Guide Dogs/Helper Dogs at least one day a week to just be free and loopy.

It was a warm pleasant day, we decided to head over to one of our favourite free running places, turned out everybody was out there today too, had to hover for a parking space, crazy stuff.

Their was some teams playing football on the lower pitch, I could make out the team in Yellow but couldn’t see the team in Blue. I took my Lumix camera out for the ride to try and catch the autumnal colours. I’m really into autumn vibes, I’m an autumn girl :) . Here are a few of my favourite pics we took today.

 

My sponsored walk to raise money for Guide Dogs, is this Monday. You can still donate and it will stay open till Fri/Sat at the end of Guide Dogs week, even if it’s just £1 it will really make a difference. Thanks to everyone who’s donated all ready and will be with me at different times around the 80 minute challenge. Good luck and dry weather for your own if you are doing a ‘Go for 80′ challenge. Check out/Subscribe to GuideDogsUK’s youtube channel and website for ideas.

Have a great weekend folks.

Social Awkwardness

Published 23/09/2011 by Amy
I’ve always been quite a shy person and I don’t honestly know if this is to due to my disability or just a personality trait. I used to make friends easily, I suppose all children do. But through my teenage years and now my twenties, I’ve really only had a small select group of friends that understand me. They know me well enough to not get disappointed if we’ve arranged to hang out and then I have to cancel due to a Migraine or something. 


When I was going through the motions of white cane training and later on with my guide dog Ellie, a lot of people were saying this is going to be so great, it will change your life, you can go and have coffee with friends and get out and work.. or words to that affect. Truth is. Not only do I not drink coffee, but I rarely hang out with my friends in person and do that kind of thing anyway. I never did before, why should I after?. I’m not a very social person, in my family we often joke that ‘I don’t do people’. Outsiders can be difficult to work with, there’s always a tension and after living with it for over twenty years, I’m not inclined to put up with it more. I’d rather be anti social, than deal with the noise. 


I’ve aligned myself with friends that are somewhat anti social themselves, my best friends both have Hyper Mobility Syndrome and are unemployed. We are more ‘internet social’ that face to face social, even though we live an hour away from each other and meet up a few times a year. We chat every night, we text all day. It’s a great source of support and true friendship we’ve built over the last 4 years. There’s that instant understanding of the world just not getting us or putting expectations on us, or more usually underestimating us. My other friend Jenn isn’t disabled but we are very much alike, we both ‘don’t do people’ but she is far more social that I will probably ever be, we connect through crafts and dinosaurs. She’s an older/wiser influence in my life. It’s not that I don’t want to be part of the outside world, I’m just cynical of it. I don’t know if paranoia and cynicism is a fundamental part of a disability but it’s been present in mine for ever. 


I find going out incredibly stressful, the noise level is just so painful. I trust my guide dog implicitly and she thrives off of busy areas with plenty of pavement furniture. But I just clam up, I can’t enjoy myself when I’m out just walking her for the daily walk or working her because I need to get something from the shops. I’ve never liked being the centre of attention and knowing people are going to see you with a guide dog or a cane hypes up my anxiousness. Lately for no reason I’ve been getting annoyed with little children in supermarkets telling me dogs aren’t aloud in shops, I know they are just uneducated and I really have no reason to be so annoyed, I just am, so that bugs me more. I spend a lot of time mentally beating myself up, I wonder if this is common with everyone or another disabled trait. Also.. during the training it’s constantly mentioned that you shouldn’t let people distract your dog, if someone asks you if they can pat her, it’s your choice but usually don’t allow it because then your dog will get used to having attention while they are working and become easily distracted. I don’t even get the opportunity to say No!, she’s working, but thanks. People just distract her all the time. I was in Sainsburys yesterday, or the day before and my mum was talking to me about some rice I was after and Ellie was as usual, on my left side. I suddenly heard this ladies voice in my left ear and when I turned to try and see her out of my right eye she was fussing over Ellie. I had to drop her harness (which means she’s no longer working) and just agree that yes she was a lovely dog and yes she probably could smell your lab from home. I know it’s such a small thing to be annoyed about but these dogs have been trained for such a long time and it costs a lot of money and you’re just undoing it all every time you distract a working dog without asking first. By all means, come up to me and ask and sure if I have time I will let you but please, please do not distract my dog while she’s working and the harness is up with the sign on it. 


I think that is also another reason why I tend to dread going out of my front door, so many stressful events that people just don’t understand, and sometimes I have forgotten the reason why they fill me with dread, my heart pounds and I’m either going to throw up or faint. It’s just seems to be a routine now, a ritual, like crossing myself and saying Lord go with them every time I hear an siren. 


Growing up, because I couldn’t give any one eye contact, which I’ve been told is so important for how people relate to you and communicate with you, there’s always been this grey area that’s been an excellent breeding ground for my cynicism and misunderstandings. I am shy, I don’t have a lot of confidence but that could just be me, I’m sure it could just be anybody. That people feel that they have to talk down to me like a child or take over because I’m blind therefore can’t do anything for myself. This has happened so much that I can’t take a compliment, I can’t believe it is one. It’s horrible when you can’t listen to anything, especially praise because you’re fixated on finding the hidden meaning, the extra’s between the lines, yes you are praising me but why, what do you want?. 
Someone else that bugs me about myself is that, a lot of people say I’m bright, intelligent and funny. Which is lovely and I kind of already know it because so many people say it and sometimes I make myself laugh with the randomness that goes around in my head and comes out. BUT, when the same person says it over and over I start to wonder if that’s all they can see, that’s all they want to say, they can’t think of anything original or they haven’t noticed any other aspects of me, the whole me, not just one funny side of me. Another classic case of me, getting annoyed with something that should be nice and easy.

Reflecting On A Whirlwind Year

Published 28/08/2011 by Amy
I technically qualified as a Guide Dog Owner at the beginning of August, so this post is slightly over due but it’s still technically August so lets just leave it at that. 
So one year on with my first Guide Dog and what a turn around year it has been. Firstly I’ll tell you a bit about how it came about and then the training aspect before I get onto the stuff you want to hear about, I hope, which is the fun I’ve had being independent and having my best friend with me 24/7. 


I think it was back in 2008 that I decided I wanted to come out of my recluse state of only venturing out of the house with mum or a friend on my arm. By that time, I had already had a ROVI – Rehabilitation Officer for Visually Impaired people for a few months and we had covered various ‘indoor’ ILS – Independent Living Skills such as the scary kitchen!. Learning to chop and peel vegetables safely, pouring a hot drink using a beeper, and how to take things out of hot ovens which was one of my most deep rooted fears. Almost as bad as going down concrete steps. And developing my creative side baking cookies and bread using my talking kitchen scales and jug, which I now pretty much use on a daily basis. 


My first ROVI who was also blind did the indoor stuff with me but when I expressed that I wanted to start going out and being even more independent, for some reason they said he couldn’t do that and so I’d have a new ROVI who would do the outside stuff with me. He was just as nice, but was fully sighted, so I didn’t feel the immediate understanding that I had with the previous one. Still he was very helpful and postive, he challenged me – in a good way and introduced me to the white cane. After a few weeks of practise it became so natural I wondered why I hadn’t been using it before, everyone I met in town gave me positive feedback on seeing me out and about and happy. How confident I looked things like that. Which was nice but a bit scary because I’ve never really liked being the centre of attention and I’d liked being ‘blended’ in with everyone else, no one knowing I couldn’t see even though some bits of behaviour would have alerted them to it anyway, such as having things right in your face to read them or the right colour. I shopped by colour for years.


I can’t remember how long I used the cane for but it must have been near a year I think. I had another meet up with my ROVI and we got onto the subject of Guide Dogs and would I be interested. I told him I had thought about it when I was younger, and still in secondary school and was scoffed at by a career advisor who told me I’d never be able to have one and also that my idea of working for the National Trust, because I could memorise names, places and dates, and a room layout were ‘reaching to high’ and to much paper work. That I’d be better of keeping my hopes to a call centre job. My ROVI told me that the only requirement that Guide Dogs look for is that you have had prior white cane training and if I was still interested he’d give them a call and we could set up an interview, which was really just an informal chat. I said please do. 


The lady from the local Guide Dogs branch came over and we had a chat. I had a few questions, I have a friend who has a black lab and she’s always jumping up on me and I wasn’t really used to dogs at the time, so I wasn’t ready for when it did jump up and it would push me over and spook me a little. The lady assured me she shouldn’t be doing that and if I wanted she’d have a word with my friend about it, because she was obviously not aware of it or was but wasn’t maintaining discipline. After that we went for a walk and she observed me and afterwards she said I was eligible, so she’d go away and leave me to think about it talk to the family and get back to her if I wanted to put my name on the waiting list. 


I knew that I wanted a Guide Dog but I also knew my dad wasn’t very keen on having a dog or any pet really. My mum said if it will help it’s worth it. So between mum and I we managed to turn dad around. I called the lady up and said please put my name on the waiting list. They say it can take 6-18months to get a match. It was hard to push it to the back of my mind and know it was going to happen but not when, I’ve never been very good at waiting, patience is not one of my virtues. But five months later, when I was on Holiday in Cornwall I got the call! they had a match a lovely, small, quiet, golden retriever called Elma and when would we like to meet up. I was going to be home that Saturday so we arranged the meeting for the following Tuesday. I couldn’t WAIT!!. 


Elma and Mike turned up on the Tuesday and we sat in the back garden. I took to her instantly and she seemed to like me a lot too. Mike was going to be my trainer. I had to decide that night if I was sure, and I knew I was. I called back the next day and said yes I’d like to go ahead. We started training twice a day from home for the next 4 weeks. Also.. I first met Elma on her 2nd Birthday!!. 


I qualified in 3 weeks technically, but I say 4 because we started midweek. We had trouble finding the right harness size because my arms are short, well all of me is short. So I don’t have a nice new shiny harness we have a battered, old, 15” one :) But it works just fine. 


I was a bit anxious of the training. I had no idea what I would be doing and to trust a dog I’d met a couple of times was daunting, even though some how I had taken instantly to the cane. I think it’s because the cane is so long and you can really feel it and hear it. I hadn’t experienced being led by a dog before. But it wasn’t anywhere as scary as I thought it might be. I just hung on and did what Mike told me and Elma works really well. She loves busy places and what I call stress places because they are so busy and noisy, but she really thrives of of it. Weaving me in and out of people and ‘pavement furniture‘. We trained a lot in the nearest city and then in the surrounding housing estates. Which I guess helped because I had to trust her then, because I had no idea where I was!, but I preferred it because it had decent curbs. Around here it’s all flat, tactile pavement or just sloped off for easy access to scooters and buggies. It’s a bit pointless saying ‘Find the curb’ when there isn’t one and you’re constantly expecting to find one. Then you realise you’re off the road and onto a bumpy bit or just pavement again without any real indication, it can really disorientate you. After I qualified Mike came back every month, then 2 months, then 3 months then 6months then I was left alone for another 6 months and he came back after the first year. But they are always only a phone call away, which is great to know. 


In the beginning I kept calling Elma, Elmo.. so I quickly started calling her Ellie, which she has been ever since. I’m really glad I did the cane training and even gladder (is that even a word, if it’s not it should be) I have Ellie by my side. Making it safe for me to go out and lead a normal life. I’m so thankful for everyone that supports Guide Dogs and trains Guide Dogs, and especially those puppy walkers out there. 


I’m happy to say we haven’t really had any major issues in our first year, so I hope that’s the way it’s going to stay. I’ve heard a lot about Guide Dogs being attacked so I’m always a bit anxious when we go out because I know we have dangerous dogs in this area. Several swans and their cygnets have been killed by pittbulls owned by known drug users in the last few years. Ellie stuck her nose in a flower pot and got stung by an insect, which she had a bad reaction to and it swelled up and was rather bloody and pussy, we took an emergency pit stop to the vets who gave us some meds and it’s cleared up now, just waiting for the fur to grow back. I was so thankful to have my parents there to help me deal with it and clean it and get her to the vets because I’m not sure what I would have done. Been phoning people in tears and completely incoherent probably. 


I don’t really remember much of my training and I wish I had kept a day by day diary but I will make an effort to do that next time. The bits that stick out the most are the bus and train trip we did and the night time walk, which was a lot of fun. For some reason. I actually have sight in the dark but I don’t in the light. So there we were walking along this moon lit pavement on the other side of town and Mike’s walking somewhere around because he’s giving us instructions. I could hear his voice sometimes from the right and sometimes on my left, and he’s talking about how Dogs can see differently at night or something and he’s bumping into things and saying ‘omf and ow’. I’m trying desperately not to laugh because here he is a fully sighted person, supposedly guiding a guide dog and a blind girl and he’s bumping into things. and I’m walking along next to Ellie going OMGOSH I think I can make out something, what is it! ohh exciting. It turned out to be a very suspicious lamppost which Ellie took offence to so we quickly walked past. 


The bus and train trip was amusing. We did one stop on the bus which took us to the train station, one stop on the train which took us back to the car. Very exciting. I have to say I don’t like buses even though I’ve been given a free bus pass. I’m afraid I don’t use it very much, except in emergencies, like if the train station is too far to walk from where I am actually going. I find buses extremely awkward places to get situated in without being in the way or worrying someones going to stand on Ellie’s tail. I don’t think she likes them much either because she fidgets and wont lie down and stay down. Trains are easier, we’ve been on them more and I also have a disabled railcard that gives me a 1/3 of fares. It also gives who ever I am with 1/3 of fares so mum and I do a weekly day out on the train. Trains are easier because I know that we are both ‘out of the way’ then. I can find a seat and ask if it’s empty and then slide myself in, then get Ellie past my knees, so she’s by the window and then I’m in the aisle. Far much simpler than a bus where there seem to be chairs in all directions!. Not to mention steps, WHY do you need steps in a bus? I ask you!. 


More adventures await! here is a pic of Ellie and I taken this year. I hope we are both facing the camera. If not d’oh.




Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 97 other followers