Hello. I’m writing a short children’s story in which a blind man is a character. In one scene, a girl notices a man with a dog inside a train. She doesn’t realize that the man is blind by noticing the guide dog, but rather by him holding a white cane.
My question, is this a realistic scene? Would a blind person with a guide dog also carry or use a white cane? For this scene, the cane could be fully extended or collapsed just so it’s visible by the girl.
Thanks in advance.
Interesting question. My initial gut feeling was that a blind person would use one or the other but not both. A bit of Googling seems to bear this out. It’s better to be completely blind to use a guide dog; canes are better if you have some vision and are more capable of navigating on your own (though with a dog you still have to know when to tell it to go right, left, etc.).
And on the AFB message boards, some idiot posted a thread with the subject line MAKE A TON OF MONEY . . . LOOK HERE!!! :smack:
I’ve seen plenty of blind people with both cane and dog.
A dog is good at indicating that something is amiss, such as indicting the existence of an obstruction on the sidewalk. However there is no way for the dog to tell you anything about the step beyond the fact that it exists. The obstruction could be an overturned trashcan, or a paving block that has become dislodged, or a parked ambulance, or a gaping hole caused by a burst water main. All the dog can do is stop and indicate that there is an obstruction. To determine what the obstruction is and how to best navigate around it you need the cane. Either that or get down on your hands and knees and start feeling around.
In essence dogs give a really good big picture, but you still need the cane for fine detail. In a busy inner city where the maintenance is done regularly and there are dozens of people walking past a spot every minute the cane is probably superfluous. Once you get into areas where only a few people walk every day or areas where things are routinely left lying on the ground such as parks, it’s going to become more important to have a cane.
Fiancee of blind guy here. Blake is right. Fiancee says in general circumstances, you would not use both because, quote (and excuse his French) “it would fuck the dog up”. He would carry a folded cane until needed.
I thought the dog could navigate the blind person around the obstacle?
They can if they have to/are allowed to. But it’s not the default. A guide dog guides a person, it doesn’t lead them. The person still has to make the choices.
Looking at the example I gave above. If the object on the sidewalk is just a slightly shifted paving block then it’s just a step and the owner doesn’t need to be taken around. But they still need to know that it’s there. If it’s an ambulance then you probably don’t want to have to walk out into the traffic just to go around it, but you may have to. And if the object is a construction barricade or police barrier you may need to actually need to go back to the last corner and walk up the other side of the street. And if its a burst water main then you probably could try to squeeze between it and the wall but don’t want to. And if it’s an unconscious person then you probably don’t want to pass by at all.
Dogs aren’t trained to take all those sorts of choices out of the hands of the person. If it’s somehting unusual they will indicate that the obstacle exists and then wait for a signal from the owner what alternative path to take, if any. If the owner signals that they want to go around then the dog will take them around. But the owner still needs to know whether it’s a step, a corpse or a barricade to make that decision.
Personally, I’m just trying to figure out how a white cane, folded or not, is more of a tip-off than a dog in a working harness (versus a pet on a leash or being carried).
Guide dogs are incredibly well behaved and unobtrusive. In my morning commute I often saw a man who had a guide dog. I actually noticed he was blind b/c he had a special watch which flipped up so he could feel the time. His dog (golden lab or retreiver cross) usually lay quietly under his seat and I only noticed him later, when I saw the same man/dog combo waiting on the platform for the train.
Ah, I was picturing the man standing with his dog standing next to him–it *does *make sense that if the man were seated the dog would be under the seat and not very obvious at all.