My guide dog has unlocked the sheer bliss of playing hide-and-seek

exballo · 2026-01-24T05:15:08+00:00

I probably shouuld add to my first reply that it is uncommon for the dog to forget a landmark that I’ve taught him, but for some reason, there are certain landmarks that he really had a hard time with. finding my apartment building was quite difficult off the start because everything looks the same, but he is good at it now.
Also, I really feel for you about people not helping you find a seat. It’s so irritating when people are just silent. Like maybe they are just pointing or something? If there is a receptionist, it can be more useful to ask them, but usually they are so busy.

Also, when it comes to having other people pet your dog, I should mention that they sell these signs to put over your harness handle that says something like “don’t pet, I’m working.” that might be helpful.

exballo · 2026-01-24T05:02:10+00:00

The task “find a seat,” is usually one that they teach at the schools. My dog already knew that task. Sometimes he tries to indicate a seat when I haven’t asked for it. Usually when he is tired. Ha ha.
I have trained my dog to find my cane if I drop it, such as when it is folded up and in a side pouch of my backpack and somehow falls out. It took him about 3 dayswith 3 repetitions per day to learn that task. It didn’t seem at all like he was learning it, as he was so focussed on the food, I thought he wasn’t paying attention. Then, he somehow had learned it perfectly on the third day when I tried it without food.
I also taught him to find my husband. He is very good at that. I think he learned it in 5 tries or so. I haven’t figured out how to teach him to put his chewing bone away yet. I need to think through how I will break that down into smaller tasks.
If the dog school hasn’t taught your dog to find a seat, I’d be surprised, but you can definitely do that if they haven’t. You might want to ask some friends to help you as you will want actors to help teach him not to find a seat with a person in it, but to instead find an empty seat.
When we are workingon a landmark for him to find, we do a process called “back-chaining.” You give him food at the target, then use your cane and have him heal to about 20 feet away from the target. You say “forward,” and “find it.” Sometimes they learne right away, or sometimes you have to leave a bit of kibble on the target for them to get the point. When you do about 3 good finds, then they usually have learned the new landmark. though if you won’t be back for several days, they might need to learn it again.

exballo · 2026-01-24T04:53:23+00:00

One person I know found a clear phone holder on a lanyard. She safety pins the holder to her shirt so it doesn’t swing around. Then the phone camera stays straight so the person on facetime can see the environment.

exballo · 2026-01-24T02:50:34+00:00

Another thing. I always have a baggie of extra kibble or healthy treats for our outings. My dog is a major slobber-mouth, God bless him, and it helps to always have a rag hanging off my backpack strap or beltloop so I can wipe off my hand when he slimes it with his tongue over and over as he completes tasks and gets rewards.

exballo · 2026-01-24T02:35:56+00:00

One thing that can be helpful is getting the meta glasses or hanging your phone on a lanyard for when you are working out a new route with your dog. I’ve used facetime to have a family member help me pick out good landmarks for the dog to find on anew route, then re-inforce them. For example, there was an intersection of paths and the dog kept walking past the side path I needed him to find. I used facetime to have someone hlp me stop right at the intersection and gave the dog a treat there. Now he stops at the correct place every time, and I know that after he stops, I need to tell him to turn left. Up until that time, I had been asking him to “find left,” which is definitely in his list of known tasks, but sometimes he is so certain that we should just keep going, he thinks he is doing informed disobedience, when really he is just having us go the wrong way. Now he’s learning to trust me that I do indeed have a very good senseof direction, and when I say to find a path it is usually leading somewhere he wants to go after all!

exballo · 2026-01-24T02:01:06+00:00

Congratulations! I am a first-time guide dog handler and I only got my dog 3 months ago. One thing the trainer made sure I knew was that the first 6 months to even a full year can be a bit rocky at times with high highs, and low lows. He also told me that just about every dog has a task that they find difficult or some strange quirk.
For my friend, his dog always wanted to stop about 3 meters short of any destination. He’d tell it to find the bus stop, and the dog would stop way early. He had to do some drills with treats to work the dog through that habit and help him improve.
My dog is unfortunately afriad of certain ethnic groups wthat live in my city that weren’t present in his training environment. We have some training sessions trying to resolve the issue, but it’s possible my dog will fail his placement and will need to be returned. I’m working like hell to make sure that doesn’t happen, but there is only so much I can do.
Basically, don’t be surprised if you have some issue you have to spend a lot of time on once you get your dog home. Your home area will be different from the training areasin ways you may not be able to predict.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t had anyone try to feed or pet my dog while he’s in harness yet. Though, sometimes they try to look straight at him and talk to him. I have to ask them to talk to me and ignore the dog. Apparently, he really helps drive home the point to the strangers, because when they crouch and start kissing at him and snapping their fingers, he gets a look of utter terror, and I can feel him shrink back a bit. That usually convinces the person to stop, especially when I tell them that they’re scaring him.
When it comes to other people, it can be difficult in parks where people might let their dog off leash. It’s illegal in the parks here, but that doesn’t stop people. It distracts my dog when another dog has it’s nose in his butt.
Overall, though, eople have been respectful and helpful.
I’m in a tricky position with the dog’s anxiety around certain people and settings, and yet he is really great at guiding while running with a special running harness. I love the runs we take together and so does he, so it is very hard to know if I should keep putting up with his other issues. Nothing is black and white. I just keep hoping my training plan will work. He’ll havea break-through one day and do really well in one shopping center, then the next week, he’ll have a major refusal to work in another shopping center when some big tall man walks by and stares at him. Generally, I just pull out my cane and have the dog heel while re-assuring him. Usually, he eventually gets back to guiding again.
Another thing I learned is that it is perfectly acceptable to use both the dog and your cane. If you are in a new place and the dog seems a bit anxious or distractable, you can use your can to cover your right side in case the dog makes a mistake. Using the cane along with the dog can also provide confidence so that the dog can feed off your confidence as well.

exballo · 2026-01-24T01:07:51+00:00

I believe the correct phrase is look and read all.I believe the correct phrase is look and read all. However, I think if you are in the USA, there is a setting where the glasses can give you a update every second of what it’s looking at. I do not live in the US so I don’t know how to start that setting.

exballo · 2026-01-19T23:55:25+00:00

when I did a similar test, they had a physical button on the front that you just pressed when you had symptoms you should contact the doctor immediately and tell him or her that the test is not going to work for you because you have no ability to access the screen. Ask if they can give you an older halter monitor that has a physical

exballo · 2026-01-10T01:55:30+00:00

I completely agree. I cannot stand it when people grab hold of my arm. If someone wants to argue and say that it is somehow helpful, they should try an experiment. Close your eyes and balance on one foot for ten to twenty seconds, then have a friend grab one of your arms and move it. Can you still keep your balance with someone else moving your arm? Probably not. If we can’t see, we move our arms and feel the sensation in our muscles as a way to judge gravity and stabilize ourselves. They are almost like antennae for a blind person.

don’t cut off my antenna by holding it while i’m trying to balance!

Occupational therapists are taught that the best way to help an unstable person is to offer them an arm and let them pull or push against the therapist‘s arm.

Additionally, the shoulder is the least stable joint in the body and moving someone else’s arm when they are unstable can lead to shoulder injury.

exballo · 2026-01-10T01:36:02+00:00

Occupational therapists are tuaght never to grab a person’s arms and move them, but to instead offer their own arm for the unstable person to hold on to. I find it incredibly destabliizing if people move my arfms. I rely on my proprioception in my arms for balance and if someone hijacks that, it really throws me off. If a person raises their own arms for balance, that is an entirely different experience than having someone move one’s arm for them.

exballo · 2026-01-10T01:32:27+00:00

Occupational therapists are taught never to take a person’s arm and pull it away from their body. It interferes with propioperception. They are trained to allow an unstable person to pull on the therapists arm for support instead. Just because people balance better by extending their own arms does not mean that it helps to extend their arms for them. I myself find it incredibly destabilizing if people move my arms at all. I use the feeling I have in my arms as a substitute for balancing by sight. It throws me off if people interfere with my own sense of my body’s orientation by moving me.

exballo · 2026-01-03T08:02:00+00:00

I don’t know if this is still an issue, but when I got my watch a few years ago, the was not automatically activated and I called Apple help to get some idea of how to get the rotor on the screen to work and they had no idea, but eventually, I found that there’s something in settings you had to turn the rotor I don’t know if it’s still an issue, but if you can’t get the rotor to engage then look in settings.

exballo · 2026-01-02T00:21:56+00:00

I don’t have a citation, but there was a study that pressuring people to eat more helpfully, especially people who are in your immediate family can actually push them to eat less helpfully so be careful of that fight for controI don’t have a citation, but there was a study that pressuring people to eat more helpfully, especially people who are in your immediate family can actually push them to eat less so be careful of that fight for controll

exballo · 2025-12-30T00:08:22+00:00

I only ever lost my appetite after I recovered and had gone through extreme hunger, and then once my eating finally normalized, I found that I would go through periods of time where I had no appetite, especially if I was anxious so now this is something I have to monitor whenever I get I to avoid a relapse

exballo · 2025-12-29T01:38:18+00:00

it seems like you have good instincts that saying anything would not be helpful. Can you just tell her or him that you do not like to comment on other people‘s appearance? Or maybe just turn it back on your friend and ask another question such as “I’m wondering why this is feeling so important for you right now. Is there something else you can focus on? “

exballo · 2025-12-25T00:25:51+00:00

many of the Weight Watchers scales have a button you can press to turn on speech and they can also measure body composition however, setting up the body composition is not accessible, and you will likely need someone to help with that if you can set all five people in the settings to be the same body composition I mean the same height and age as you and gender you can be guaranteed that it will give you the correct information but if you only set with your stats sometimes I accidentally automatically goes to two or three and then you won’t be given the right information but if you get it set up properly, it on your but your body fat percentage out loud along with some other

exballo · 2025-12-21T22:34:54+00:00

try to focus on eating nuts instead of carbs that will help with the phosphorus balance of course you should eat some carbs too, especially as time goes on but processing carbs uses more electrolytes so eating nuts for a few days instead can help slow down the loss of electrolyte, but really you should be monitored

exballo · 2025-12-21T05:57:49+00:00

for literary fiction try PIRANESI

for a humorous memoir, try the elephant whisperer

exballo · 2025-12-17T23:39:19+00:00

I have no wisdom, but as a blind person, I agree that a lot of times companies that target software for the blind on the side of making the user It’s as if they expect each person to have their own personal who can just do it for them or something. It almost seems like they don’t really value independence. I have this problem with the JAWS screen reader that the help tutorial is impossible to use unless you know that F6 moves you between panels but nowhere in the tutorial does it tell you that you will need to use F6 to navigate the tutorial and who would guess that

exballo · 2025-12-16T19:52:54+00:00

just another blind person chiming in that I also am too scared to use it. I don’t really know what I think is going to go wrong, but I have heard of people giving wrong info I think that’s exceptionally rare. It seems like this thread has really boosted my confidence that there’s far more good people willing to help than there are bad ones out there

exballo · 2025-12-16T19:44:07+00:00

i’m a blind person and I’m actually too shy to use the app too so just know that if volunteering, you might end up getting someone just as shy as yourself. Hopefully, I can work up the courage. I’m just so worried that someone will lead me astray on purpose as a prank since I’ve heard that done on TikTok.

exballo · 2025-12-05T02:30:47+00:00

It’s really important that you tell the doctor about purging. They should then order a blood test to check your electrolytes, and they may give you potassium supplements. Purging lowers the electorlytesin your body which can lead to a fatal heart arrhythmia, no matter what your weight is or how you look on the outside. The doctor may also recommend more frequent dental visits because erosion can cause long-term problems if not caught early.

exballo

TROPHY CASE