Guide Dog Literacy Class

On Wednesday, we had an all day class about guide dogs. It was quite fun. Our teacher barely has any vision as I will describe later. She also has a website for her classes.

Roja is her guide dog.

 

After we were introduced, the class started. The first thing we did was try to figure out the objects in the box. To do so, we were blindfolded. I went first. I thought one of the things in there was a Shopkin. I told them it might be something my sister collects. Grace guessed Shopkins which caused everybody to start guessing Shopkins whenever we didn’t know what it was. I may be to blame for that.

After the guessing, we received braille cards. Our teacher, Miss Joy, wrote one of the people’s names in braille. She wrote Grace.

We found out how beneficial canes are to blind people by using her cane to feel bumps and see how it would work. After that, she read Looking Out For Sara. It is about a guide dog named Perry who helped the author get around.

 

You can’t see it, but there is someone using the cane.

 

Miss Joy’s dog, named Roja, had an obstacle course. We laid down pretzels and saw if he was distracted by it. He wasn’t. 

We visited a puppy guide dog in training. Her name was Cila. They had lots of pictures with her. The owners talked about training her, too.

We went on a path and pretended to be a guide dog, handler, and also tried to distract the dog. When it was my turn to be the dog, I was distracted by everything.

We were assigned to talk about different types of service dogs in our groups. I was with Christian. We made it like we were on a TV show. He talked about the dog, and I did the intro and outro. The show had a lot of sponsors. I made up what I was going to say right there. I did have some plan, though.

Christian and I came in second place which meant we were second to go around the block with the goggles that show how her eyesight is. In her right eye, she can’t see at all. In her left, she can barely see.

I made a tripwire with a hose hooked around a stool. We had to move some of the stuff that we put out back. I simulated a recycle can knocked over after a storm. We all navigated the obstacle course quite well even though there was the tripwire.

It is quite easy when it is a person guiding you. It must be harder when you have a guide dog. Miss Joy’s dog tried to bring her to her garage, but she used a command to make her go forward. We only had two items out for her. The guide dog led her through perfectly.

The field trip is very fun and I would do it again.

Communikate is my sister, and she made a blog post about this too.