for Students with Disabilities. And this is Lucy. She’s my guide dog. She’s a service

animal but more specifically she’s a guide dog. And for someone who is blind or visually

impaired. And she is from Southeastern Guide Dog. The services that Lucy performs as a

guide dog is primarily most of her commands are find and follow commands. And she can

find such things as doors, curbs. And she can find chair. She can find stairs when there’s

stairs up or stairs down. She can find escalators, find elevators. And so those are a lot of

the basics commands for mobility that she’s trained to do. Having a guide dog really is

life-changing. It’s a really good, secure feeling of never being alone. It gives me

more confidence in traveling independently. And I was formerly a white cane user. You

see some blind people using a white cane and that was really good. I had great independence

with that. But just kind of working together as a team is really just kind of a fun and

exciting endeavor for me now. And I’ve had Lucy for about three months. So it’s just

constantly building that relationship. It’s working together as a team. It’s important

to know when you meet a guide dog that they’re working. They’re performing a service for

a person with a disability, so mainly to not distract them. I know it’s very tempting

to want to pet them and interact with them. Of course the dog really would like that interaction

too because they are a dog. They want to play. So helping them to stay focused so they’re

obedient to the person that they’re serving is really important. Also to know that they

wear a harness and as you can see she’s wearing this harness now. And when the person

has the harness in hand that means that they’re working. Or when I take the harness off then

she knows that she can relax and just be a dog. So there are a lot of times that at home

she gets to play. So it’s not all work for her. So she has a good balanced life in that

aspect. A lot of people have a lot of different reactions to Lucy. Some people seem to be

afraid right from the start and they kind of back off. And then some get so overexcited

where they just really want to play with her and pet her. And then a lot of people will

just ask me questions and I really like that response most when people are inquisitive

about her and what it means to have a guide dog. Because I like to be able to educate

people about what it means to have a guide dog and what is it like having a vision impairment.

So I like those types of reactions, somewhere in the middle ground. In the process of getting

a guide dog I had to have orientation and mobility training with a white cane. So I

had to have really good mobility skills and be able to cross streets and navigate public

transportation. So I did that for about a year, that training, and then I went through

the application process at Southeastern Guide Dog School in Florida. And then they reviewed

to see if I would be a good candidate for a guide dog, and they thought I was. So then

I had to go to their school and train with Lucy for a month there on their campus. Initially

to train a guide dog, when they’re first born, in about 3 or 4 months they get placed

with a foster family, and they’re called puppy raisers. They stay with the puppy raisers

for about a year before the dogs then return back to the school for their formal guide

dog trainer. That’s with their trainer where they learn all the formal commands of being

a guide dog. So they do that at the school for about 6 months. So Lucy was about 20 months

old when I got her. And most of the dogs they’re around the age of 2 when they are placed with

the person that they’re gonna be serving. So when Lucy’s with me at work she is primarily

in what’s called the down position, and she lays, she’s trained to lay down by my

feet and off to the side. And then when I’m in public restaurants and public places she’ll

go down under the table in front of my feet. So a lot of times when she’s in harness

if she’s stationery she’ll be laying down in this position. When we walk and she is

in the heel command and I’m working her as we’re walking she’s trained to walk

on my left side. So she’ll always be in harness on the left side. Lucy now she’s

in the stand position and this is the position when we’re getting ready to work and walk

and move forward. And this is her harness and when I’m holding the harness in my hand

then she knows that she’s working. And this leash is the correction leash. And this leash

is for if I need to make a correction to her if she’s off course or just needs to be

corrected on something that she’s doing. So then she’s just in the position ready

to walk and “forward” would be the next command to proceed forward. And she knows

several commands such as, she can do sit, stand, forward, she can go right, left, right

about, would be so she knows to turn around. And many of her commands are to find commands.

Find and follow. Like for example, she’ll find the curb, or find the stairs, find the

door. If I go into a classroom or an area where there’s seating and I tell her to

find the chair. She knows that she will walk forward to a chair and rest her chin on that

chair and then I would know that’s where to sit. And then she can follow. If I want

her to follow a sighted person and go what’s called sighted guide, I will just hold the

correction leash, and I’ll put down the harness and then she will follow the sighted

person. So she’s also trained to follow people.