Re: guide dogs!
@Slj, that is pretty funny though not surprising. My mum's first dog was called Lilly, and was very gentle. Once in a supermarket, a lady shouted in quite a firm tone "lilly! come here!" where upon my mum's dog ran streight to her and sat in front of her. The lady was quite confused and said "what?" my mum said "well you called Illy, here she is"
It turned out the lady had a little girl who was also called Lilly, who was actually quite surprised to find she had the same name as my mum's dog.
At least I shouldn't have that problem with reaver, well not unless someone is warning of an attack of space zombies from out of the firefly series .
@Aaron, learning commands isn't difficult, indeed no harder than say learning the new controls for the game. The harder parts of guiding are learning to walk correctly and have your hands and body in the right position, and learning to trust the dog, though all of this is just a matter of muscles and practice so not soemthing to worry about.
In the Uk the commands are similar, but there are rather more of them. Left, right, streight on, foreard (used when the dog has stopped at a curb or flight of steps), hup hup or steady as you said. Also "back" to turn round, and "in" meaning veer right but carry on in the same direction and "over" meaning the same to the left, (useful say when your getting too close to the edge of the pavement). They also use the term "watch" spoken quite firmly when the dog is in danger of making a guiding mistake. usually, (and especially with a dog as gentle as reever), yelling "no!" when out in public is a bad idea sinse your going to upset your dog, so "watch" in a slightly less ominous tone works. if for example Reever is taking me around a poke and I accidently hit it even slightlyI tell her "back" go back a few feet then say "watch" and make her try it again. This doesn't happen often, but when it does it is important to use the "watch" phrase and do it again so Reever is still aware what she should be doing.,
Reever also came learning the find commands and "follow" provided I point at the person to follow, also the rather whacky command "busy" meaning go to the toilet, (which is actually useful).
Regarding pointing or making palm gestures, well that depends upon the dog and the person. i was always told to indicate with my body so that I didn't need to with my hand, and to give more emphasis to the vocal commands sinse there are times pointing just isn't possible (such as when carrying a bag in the other hand).
This does take getting used to sinse it's a bit daunting to be having to say " streight on" or "right" on the street in public rather than just making less obtrusive gestures but it pays off in the long run sinse if a dog is more used to hearing commands than seeing them the dog will more easily learn new words.
Also, while those sorts of try out walks are very helpful, guide dogs hear in britain always runs a couple when you sign on or are accepted, they really are only an indicator. With guide dogs the more you put in and the more used to things you and the dog get, the better things work, especially when you've learnt to trust your dog to do things independently. For example these days even if I am in a strange shop I don't bother trying to memorize the layout, I just tell Reever "find the counter" and let her do it.
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