It has been made clear to me that discussions of guide dogs have no place when speaking of working dogs. Also, that saying some dogs will protect without training, only applies to training protection dogs. I don't see how "without training for protection" mean only discussing protection training; as then it would be a dog who is trained to protect doing the protecting.

In any case, this is my last post here. As I was told, "This is a working dog forum." I thought all forms of working dogs would be respected. I will not bite my tongue when guide dogs "WORK" is belittled and implied is not true work.

As for my last thread; it had nothing to do with giving advice on training sport or other protection dogs. So included in this last post are a few more examples from another trainer of working dogs.

I have been questioned as to my experience. I started as a teen apprenticing with a K9 trainer for 4 years where I trained bomb detection dogs. But did not stay in that field. Almost immediately after my apprenticeship ended, I went to The Seeing Eye for a summer. I then did a stint in the military as a WAC (no dogs) and went back to The Seeing Eye. I took a hiatus from guide dog training in the mid 70s when a trapper/naturalist cousin who had given me a wolf pup as a child invited me to come study wolf packs with him. I spent a year and a half observing two packs primarily with a little observation of a third.

I went back to guide dog training and in 1980 was asked if I could train a service dog for the first time. (A service dog is a dog that assistss someone who is disabled with tasks that mitigate their disability.) This was new to me so I read up on this new field and told the person that I wouldn't guarantee results as I had never done this nor worked with anyone who had. The closest known service dog organization was also the first and only one that I could find. CCI (Canine Companions for Independence founded by Bergen) was 3000 miles away. The experiment was successful. I moved to New England due to marriage and got involved in various training as well as worked with captive wolves and wolfdogs. It was there that I was called on by a small zoo with a behavior problem in their wolf exhibit. I was successful enough to be recommended to other zoos. I also kept up with guide dog training.

Now I live in the southwest and continue to train guide dogs and service dogs, but very little else. My dogs have gone on to people from coast to coast and Canada. One to Mexico and one to South Africa. Since moving to the southwest in 1984, I have trained 68 guide dogs and combination guide and service dogs. Each dog takes from 18 months to 2 yrs, and I have no more than 3 in my house at any one time, but more often 2. I trained many more while with The Seeing Eye, but there they had the facilities for a great deal more to be trained by several trainers. They currently have 1800 working graduats, and several thousand GDs have been successful Seeing Eye guide dogs.

Here are the examples from the trainer at Responsible K9s. I told her of the general response to my relating the cattle incident; which she was aware of. (No names, nor even name of Foruum was mentioned.)

"How is a dog by grabbing their owner who fell in swift water keeping their handler from drowning, reacting in fear. As she watches a whole stringer of FIFTEEN of their beloved retrieving bumpers floating away down the river .
That was Wisp as a yearling .

Or a dog by jumping off a bridge 30 feet down into the flooded Colorado River to grab their owner who had a seizure and fell off the bridge backwards, doing so in fear? It would have been much easier to see the owner drown and not do such drastic action. 3 year old dog
That was Tartar

Or a dog taking on a full grown charging bull when all the pup had to do was stand still and let the bull go for what he was aiming at.... the Human.... but the dog stepped into the line of the charge grabbed the bull by the nose and flipped the bull flat on its face and completely over..
9 month old puppy
That was Tartar.

How is a dog taking the hit from a car to knock her owner backwards out of a crosswalk and out of the line of the car, doing so in fear. She could have just scuttle one step back and been missed but her handler would have been road pizza from the red light running car...
That was Nitro.

I could go on and on with situations where dogs did NOT have property or even their own life to defend and could easily have stepped out of the way and let fate have its way..

ResponsibleK9"

The above dogs were Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, as that is the primary breed she deals with.

Though the majority of dogs very likely would not willingly put themselves in danger for their pack leader; some will. I still stand by this statement!!!!

Goodbye!

 Quote: joy van veen

It has been made clear to me that discussions of guide dogs have no place when speaking of working dogs. .... guide dogs "WORK" is belittled and implied is not true work.

I'm not going to address the rest of that post. But I have to reply to this part.

Neither of these comments has any factual basis whatsoever on this board.

Shouldn't this be better titled as:

"A Drama Queen trainer in need of constant attention got called too often on her actual lack of knowledge ( despite numerous requests for her to stop giving bad information on subjects that she knew nothing about )?"

Good God!!!

Nobody belittled anything.

Nobody said guide dogs suck.

Nobody even questioned your training of guide dogs.

Your claims of being a breeder, then not a breeder, then a breeder, then not a breeder were called into question. As were your post on personal protection.

Most of your time was spent typing out your credentials anyways. Lots of times. We get it.

Later.

Wait a minute......Is this the REAL Joy van Veen, or the alien that stole her identity and posted all those false claims on other sites? Or did one of your dogs steal the keyboard to protect you from yourself?

The world may never know Michael. Personally, just for my own reconciliation of all that has transpired, I will hold to the thought that there is no real Joy Van Veen. She's a composite of other peoples lives and experiences held together by the fantasies an internet identity can provide.

 Quote: steve strom

The world may never know ..... She's a composite of other peoples lives and experiences held together by the fantasies an internet identity can provide.

What a wordsmith!

 Quote: Michael_Wise

.... did one of your dogs steal the keyboard to protect you from yourself?

Happens to me all the time. But it's to protect the board from me!

 Quote: steve strom

The world may never know Michael. Personally, just for my own reconciliation of all that has transpired, I will hold to the thought that there is no real Joy Van Veen. She's a composite of other peoples lives and experiences held together by the fantasies an internet identity can provide.

I like to think that she was a Care Bear.

Hey, isnt that a little belittling to care bears?

A bit of a disappointment, since I think an experienced guide dog trainer could have benefited the board - had they stuck to discussing guide dog training. Well, I suppose they could discuss anything, so long as they knew when they were wrong.