Newsletter for
Guide Dog
Users of
February 2009
President,
Carla Glenn
Any
changes in contact information, or articles for publication should be sent to
the editor,
Amy
Shaw
You
can call Carolina Paws at 919-632-2952
Our
e-mail address is carolinapaws@clearwire.net
Check
us out on the web at www.carolinapaws.org
Table of
Contents
President's Message
Carla Glenn
Treasurer's Report
Amy Shaw
A Guide with No Remote . . . Zeus’ Story
Vickie London
Our Aging Dogs: How to Keep Them Healthy
Dr. David Smith DVM
Reprinted from Leader Dog Update Issue 1 2008
Disaster Preparedness: Plan for Yourself and Your Dog.
Rick Kocher
Reprinted from Leader Dog Update Issue 1 2008
A Bit of Humor
Reprinted from GDUI Leaders List
For
Your Information: Notes from the Editor’s Desk
The Happy Dog’s Bedtime Prayer
Reprinted by GDUI Leaders List
My Wheelchair Guide Dog Shepard
Amy Shaw
A Warning to All Dog Owners
Reprinted from the GDUI Leaders List
August 2008
President’s
Message
Hi
everyone. Happy 2009 to all.
One
of the things I have enjoyed most about my term as President was putting
together the Top Dog Convention here in
I
just wanted to thank everybody for their help in putting this together. I have enjoyed serving as President and I
look forward to finishing out my term.
Period
October – December 2008
Beginning
Balance - $593.07
Withdrawals - $100 donation to Guide Dog Users of Florida
for Top Dog 2009
No
Deposits
Ending
Balance - $493.07
A Guide With
No Remote...Zeus' Story
Submitted by TWC employee
Vickie Burke,
I
am a black labrador retriever named Zeus. I have a unique story to
share and a special job to do. I hope you'll find my story
entertaining and informative.
On
Then,
it was my turn to leave. I was excited, frightened, and full of
curiosity! You see, I am a natural sniffer and there were so many
new smells and things to see. I was taken to Fishkill Prison when I
was about two months old. Now I was in a cell with a man I didn't
know. Other puppies and I were together in classes learning
things such as sit, stay, come, here, and down. I soon learned that
if I did everything just right, the man would pet and praise me. I
wanted to please him so I really worked hard at learning what he wanted me to
do. I lived in a cell with him and we became buddies. I
loved him and the first time someone came to get me to take me out of the
prison, I was afraid I wouldn't see my friend again. But there were
more new smells and sounds and more people to love me. I went
everywhere with them, shopping, to ball games, church , walks in the woods, and
all the time I had to keep doing the things my friend was teaching me in the
prison. Then those nice people would take me back to my friend in
the prison.
A
couple times a month, I would leave the prison and experience new
things. This routine continued for about 15 months. I
grew to love my friend and I would lie under his desk while he
worked. In the evenings, we would play and practice my
commands. I knew I was a special dog and I knew I was loved.
One
morning my friend took me to the gate and he was very sad. I didn't
understand. I had been to the gate before but not with my
friend. He hugged me and told me goodbye. I was taken to
a kennel which I shared with another dog. We had to perform all our
commands and do other things for people. We spent several days playing with a
new person. I was raised in the Puppies Behind Bars program started
back in 1997. My new friend said that families had been raising
puppies for this school for many years and that if we made it to be guide dogs
he would see his puppy raiser again.
I
wasn't sure about whether I would see my friend again or not since he never came
outside with me. I continued to wonder what a guide dog
was. Soon I found out. A strange thing was put on my back
and it felt heavy. There were new things to learn, forward, right,
left, straight, and something called intelligent disobedience. That
was hard. I had to learn cars were dangerous and curbs and steps
were important things to look out for. What was the purpose of all
this? I pondered when my day's training was done. This went on for about six
months and I grew to love my trainers. This time there were several people who
took me for walks. We went on subways and crossed very busy streets
and I had to learn to not walk too close to the edge of train
platforms. Then the big test came! My trainer put something
on her eyes and I had to do all the things I had learned. I realized
my job was to keep her safe because now when I looked at her with my big brown
eyes she didn't look back at me. I understood that now my job was really
important and I knew what a guide dog is.
One
morning just before play time I was sleeping when my trainer came for
me. I had to walk with a strange lady who didn't look at me
either. She didn't have things over her eyes! She knew a
little about how to give me my commands but she wasn't sure about where we were
going. I was confused. She did give me lots of praise so
I guess I did good for her.
Suddenly
my life changed forever! After a hard day's work my trainer came for
me. She took me back to the same lady who I had walked with
before. This time I was left with her and I just had my
leash. What was happening? I was in a room with this lady and
another lady who also had a dog she called Zeus. "But my name is
Zeus," I thought. The lady petted me and told me I was a good
boy. She talked to me some more and called friends and said she had had a dog
switch, whatever that is. She said I was to be her guide
dog. We started working together back at the beginning as I did when
I first started learning. I just figured I had to teach her what to
do. We learned to work as a team and I took her to a train station
where tracks were on each side of the platform. Still our trainer
was with us and she gave me the command
"forward". "NO!" I couldn't do
that. I just couldn't so I backed up and turned to my
right. Thankfully she followed me and we didn't fall off the side of
the platform. She didn't look into my eyes to praise me but I got
plenty of hugs and I knew now she trusted me. I was really going to
be a guide dog!
One
Saturday we didn't work in the morning and everyone was getting dressed
up. I got a new tag and my handler received a picture of us together
that said I could go anywhere with her. That was
exciting! After lunch there were lots of people and we all marched
into a big room where we listened to speakers and my kennel mate's puppy raiser
got a picture of him in his harness. And, friends from the prison
got a picture of me too! I was so excited to see them.
My
handler and I went to
Our Aging
Dogs: How to Keep Them Happy
By David
Smith, DVM
There
are many aspects to caring for an aging dog.
Home care should include grooming your dog regularly. Pay particular attentions to changes in their
skin and coat: new lumps, breathe odor, ear discharge or odor and eye
discharge.
Keep
track of changes in their appetite, water consumption, urinary and bowel
patterns or any new or unusual habits or symptoms.
Significant
changes require a call to your veterinarian.
The
frequency of veterinary examinations should increase with age allowing your vet
to find changes and abnormalities sooner.
Your vet may suggest blood or urine tests to monitor organ systems and
to help determine appropriate care.
Dental
disease is more common as pets age resulting in pain, tooth loss and breathe
odor. Dental infections may affect other
body systems by spreading infections to the lungs, kidneys, or other body
systems. During your veterinary visits
ask about home dental care.
The
frequency of veterinary examinations should increase with age. Maintaining your dog’s ideal weight is
important. Resent studies reveal that a
dog keep at their optimal weight, will live up to two years longer. Your veterinarian can help determine the
ideal weight for your dog and the amount of food required to maintain this
weight.
To keep your canine friend healthy during his later years keep him fit and slim, maintain good grooming and home dental programs, see your vet at regularly scheduled intervals, and follow their advise on a customized health care plan to keep your dog healthy as long as possible.
Disaster
Preparedness: Plan for Yourself and Your Dog.
By Rick Kocher
To
increase the likelihood that you will be reunited with your dog in case of mass
evacuation you should microchip your dog and register the microchip. You may want to invest in a dog backpack to
allow your dog if physically capable to carry his own emergency kit. Among the items the kit should include a
photo of you and your dog together to establish ownership, a family toy or
blanket to help to reduce your dog’s stress, current rabies and vaccine
records, a first aid kit, a 3 day water supply (one ounce per pound per day),
and a minimum 3 day food supply. If you
are a leader dog user, make sure you have your leader dog id card and harness
with you at all times.
By
law service animals must be allowed in shelters. Make sure you are equipped to show shelter
staff that your dog is a leader dog.
Also it is important that your evacuation plan include a sighted
individual do to the lack of verbal information that may be provided during an
emergency evacuation. Planning and
preparing for yourself and your pet now can be lifesaving in the future.
A Bit of Humor
Reprinted from
GDUI Leaders List
A
short while later a lovely golden retriever dog trotted up to the window, saw
the sign and went inside. He looked at
the receptionist and wagged his tail, then walked over to the sign, looked at
it, wined and pawed the air. The
receptionist called the office manager.
He was surprised to say the least to see a canine applicant. However the dog looked determined so he led
him into the office. Inside the dog
jumped up on a chair and stared at the manager expectantly. The manager said “I can’t hire you. The sign said you must be able to type”. The dog jumped down, went to the typewriter
and proceeded to quickly type a perfect business letter. He took out the page and trotted over to the
manager, gave it to him and then jumped back up in the chair. The manager was stunned but told the dog that
was fantastic, but I’m sorry the sign clearly says whoever I hire has to be
good with the computer. The dog jumped
do again, went to the computer and proceeded to demonstrate his expertise with
various programs producing a sample spread sheet and then presented everything
to the manager. The manager was
absolutely dumbfounded. He said to the
dog. “Hey, I realize that you are a very intelligent applicant and have
fantastic talent but you are a dog. No
way could I hire you.” The dog jumped
down and went to the sign in the window.
He pointed his paws to the words “equal opportunity employer.” The exasperated manager said I know what the
damn sign says, but the sign also says you have to be bilingual. The dog looked him straight in the eye and
said “meow”.
For Your
Information: Notes from the Editor’s Desk
GDUI’s
Full Membership Voting: GDUI has been
looking at different considerations for achieving the ability for all of it’s
members to be able to participate in the election process because the number of
members who are able to attend a national convention, where elections take
place, is not even half of the full membership.
The “if by phone” system made this possible. So a vote on the constitutional amendment to
make this happen was conducted in February 2008. As you heard the results in Paw Tracks, the
amendment passed. Since this was a big
year election wise for GDUI, electing 5 officers and 4 board members, the full
membership voting process was again underway in May. There was some controversy at the National
Convention as to the Constitutionality of these elections. Of course everyone had an opinion, but the
bottom line is that the board of GDUI is honoring the election results, however
they have taken all of the comments and concerns into consideration by having
the constitution carefully examined to rewrite any parts necessary to correct
any mistakes to make sure this never happens again. The officers are President Becky Barnes, 1st
Vice-President Becky Collins-Floyd, 2nd Vice-President Donna Permar,
Secretary Rebecca Kragnas, and Treasurer Jane Sheehan. Board members elected are Laurie Mehta, Lynn
Duplessis, Mary Lynn Piepho and Amy Shaw.
I will be serving a two year interim term. I will be finishing out the three year term
for Rebecca Kragnas. Thanks to those who
voted for me and if you didn’t participate this time please be sure to exercise
your voting privileges next time GDUI calls for a vote with full membership
voting.
Carolina
Paws website gets a facelift: For
several years now the Carolina Paws website hasn’t been much to look at. We just had our brochure and basic contact
information up there because yahoo was charging too much to have a decent web
page there. But we wanted to maintain
our domain name of www.carolinapaws.org
with yahoo we finally found a site giving away free web space to non-profit
groups. So we are maintaining the
domain name with a link to our webpage.
We have our brochure and basic contact information as well as pictures
and features from Paw Tracks or the GDUI Leaders list there. The new page, though somewhat limited in
space but definitely better than what we had is up at www.carolinapaws.org. So if you have internet access, take a look
and by all means we are open for suggestions and ideas. Call 919-632-2952 and let me know what you
think.
Attention
all Carolina Paws Members: We have an
important decision to make regarding our affiliation with the North Carolina
Council of the Blind. This will require
voting on some constitutional changes that will be have to be made. Before that can happen, I need to get all of
you copies of the existing constitution.
You should be receiving your copies sometime in February so that will
give us plenty of time to read things over, discuss the necessary changes and
vote on them in September. We need to
get this issue resolved one way or another.
Thank you for your consideration.
The
next issue of the Carolina Paws Print will be in August 2009. If you have anything for publication, please
get it to me by the end of June. My
contact information is Amy Shaw,
Reprinted from GDUI Leaders
List
Now I lay me down to sleep,
The queen-size bed is soft and deep.
I sleep right in the center groove,
My human being can hardly move.
I've trapped her legs,
she's tucked in tight,
and here is where I pass the night.
No one disturbs me or dares intrude,
Til morning comes and I want food.
I sneak up slowly and it begins,
My nibbles on my human's chin.
she wakes up slowly and smiles and shouts,
"You darling beast! Just cut it out!"
But morning's here and its time to play,
I always seem to get my way.
So thank you Lord, for giving me,
this human person that I see
The one who holds me tight
and shares her bed with me at night!
My Wheelchair
Guide Dog Shepard
By Amy Shaw
I
have a neuromuscular disease that is affecting my balance and
coordination. I am also almost totally
blind and have used guide dogs since 1983.
I have been working with my third dog for about 7 years, but she was
really beginning to slowing down and she had lots of problems with arthritis. I realized that I was slowing down also and
my ability to walk independent and safely was getting more difficult. So we just weren’t going out much. I knew she needed to be retired but I wasn’t
quite ready to deal with that yet. On
top of everything else that was going on at the time.
The
fact that I might not be able to get another guide dog because my walking was
getting so bad meant I would be restricted to using a wheelchair. So when I learned that certain guide dogs
were also being trained to work with a person in a wheelchair I was so
excited. I began my search for a school
to work with me about a year before my present dog was going to be retired
thinking it would be a smooth transition after all.
My
first thought was to apply to the school I my other dogs from including the one
I was about to retire. I learned very
quickly that finding a school was not going to be such an easy thing and going
from one dog to another was not going to be a smooth transition. There are only four schools that deal with
this situation not including the one I first applied to. Two of those four provide this service only
to their graduates. So I immediately got
myself at Guide Dog Foundation and Southeastern Guide Dog. I still can walk some, so I use a walker when
I am at home. But when I am out and
about I am restricted to a wheelchair.
I
am happy to say I’ve had a new dog now for about a year. He is a very special dog indeed. I waited almost 2 years for him. I almost had myself convinced to give up on
the idea of a new dog. But now that I have
him I’m so glad I didn’t. I really
believe that everything happens as it does and when it does for a reason. Although two years was what seemed like an
excruciatingly long time to wait to be put in a class, I needed that time to
get used to being in a wheelchair.
I
have come up with a list of the 10 most commonly asked questions about my dog
Shepard.
Question: Is he a Shepard?
Answer:
No. He is an 80 pound English Black Lab
which means his head and feet are larger than American labs and he has a
shorter pinwheel tail.
Question: How old is he?
Answer:
He is about 4 ½ years old now. He had to
go through guide dog training first, and then he did the wheelchair training.
Question: Does your dog pull your wheelchair?
Answer: No. He
is trained as a guide dog so he guides me in my power chair. I wouldn’t be able to push myself in a manual
chair and hold onto the dog at the same time, so the school recommended that I
have a power chair in order to be able to work with a dog.
Question: Aren’t you afraid of hitting him or hurting
him with the chair?
Answer: No. He
was trained with his trainer in a wheelchair and I have been trained to be
aware of his every move, so if he stops even if he is distracted for a moment,
I must stop immediately and try to figure out why he has stopped. If he has been distracted or if I am aware of
something that might distract him, he usually responds to verbal
corrections. His harness handle is
longer than most and has a curve in it and I don’t keep such a tight hold on
him that he can’t get far enough away from the chair that he won’t get hit by
the chair if I’m not paying attention.
Question: Does he work with you in a manual chair?
Answer: No.
Question: Does he work with you when you are out of the
chair.
Answer: No. He
only works with me when I am in the power chair. My trainer said that if they could train a
two-for dog, they would be looking at big bucks.
Question: What else does he do? Does he pick up things for you when you drop
them?
Answer:
No, I wish.
Question: Is he helpful to you?
Answer: Yes.
But we would do a lot better if people would let us do what we are
trained to do. I know I am not as fast
as people think I need to be, but we always get where we are going and we do
just fine.
Question: Where did you go for your training with him?
Answer: I went to Southeastern Guide Dogs in
Palmetto,
Question: Why did you like it so much?
Answer: We had only eight people in our class so the
smaller class size made it possible for lots of personalized attention. This was a unique situation. Even thou we did most of our training apart
from the rest of the class we were together for lectures meals and leisure
time.
Being
in a wheelchair has definitely been a major change in my life and sometimes
things can be very difficult to deal with.
I will be the first to admit that having a dog doesn’t make things easy,
but it definitely makes things much more pleasant.
Warning For Dog Owners
Reprinted from
the GDUI Leaders list
Warning
to all dog owners - pass this on to everyone you can. Last Friday evening, I
arrived home from work, fed Chloe, our 24 Lb. dachshund, just as I normally do.
Ten minutes later I walked into the den just in time to see her head inside the
pocket of Katie's friend's purse. She had a guilty look on her face so I looked
closer and saw a small package of sugar-free gum. It contained xylitol. I
remembered that I had recently read that sugar-free gum can be deadly for dogs
so I jumped on line and looked to see if xylitol was the ingredient. I found
the first website below and it was the one. Next, I called our vet. She said to
bring her in immediately.
Unfortunately, it was still rush hour and it took me almost 1/2 hour to get
there. Meanwhile, since this was her
first case, our vet found another website to figure out the treatment. She took
Chloe and said they would induce her to vomit, give her a charcoal drink to
absorb the toxin (even though they don't think it works) then they would start
an iv with dextrose. The xylitol causes dogs to secrete insulin so their blood
sugar drops very quickly. The second thing that happens is liver failure. If
that happens, even with aggressive treatment, it can be difficult to save them.
She told us she would call us. Almost two hours later, the vet called and said
that contents of her stomach contained 2-3 gum wrappers and that her blood
sugar had dropped from 90 to 59 in 30 minutes. She wanted us to take Chloe to
another hospital that has a critical care unit operating around the clock. We
picked her up and took her there. They had us call the ASPCA poison control for
a case number and for a donation, their doctors would direct Chloe's doctor
on treatment. They would continue the iv, monitor her blood
every other hour and then in 2 days test her liver function. She ended up with
a central line in her jugular vein since the one in her leg collapsed, just as
our regular vet had feared. Chloe spent almost the entire weekend in the
critical care hospital. After her blood sugar was stabilized, she came home
yesterday. They ran all the tests again before they released her and so far, no
sign of liver damage. Had I not seen her head in the purse, she probably would
have died and we wouldn't even had known why.
Three vets told me this weekend, that they were amazed that I even knew about
it since they are first learning about it too. Please tell everyone you know
about xylitol and dogs. It may save another life.
