Talk:Vision Quest Stories

I also have a service dog. My service dog tells me when I am going to get a migraine. He gives me a good half hour warning. After half an hour if the medicine has not taken effect, he constantly bugs me until I take more. My first service dog wore a harnass because the migraine could get so bad that I would need something to hang onto. Because he wore a harnass, I was often treated like I was blind. I would go to restaurants and not be offered a menu due to the assumption of vision impairment. When I applied for college, my future professors treated me similarly. Two of them, independantly, had dragged me to a chair and another one was concerned about my ability to take notes in class. I have also been offered a "reader," a student that would take notes and read written instructions, by the first teacher I had in college.

One thing to point out is that when my dog first wore a harnass, it was new to both me and my dog. At an aquarium, a curious child reached out a grabbed hold of the harnass. It is difficult for a guide dog to maneuver appropriately if someone other than his handler has hold of him. For me, I have difficulty with watching what is around me and knowing where my dog is in space and what he is doing. When I was cleaning up after my dog in one instance, I kept correcting him for doing something that I was unaware of. When I finally stood up, there was a woman with a small dog that were visiting my service dog and left when I turned around. Again, not a good idea with the visually impaired.