Sigh

[Fidel_Castronaut]

So BQ92, do you or have you ever had a guide dog?

There's a chap who has a guide dog who gets on the train at my station and I've seen people stroke his dog. I've always thought it wrong to interfere as they perform a pretty vital task, but never had any clear clarification on it.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

My friend Jessica has a great dog and usually I don't pat Pippin unless his harness is off, or we're just sitting in the car or something like that. It's usually not a good thing for strangers to touch the dog but usually if you're a close personal friend the person won't mind too much.

My mobility unfortunately is not good enough for me to have a dog. Guide dogs are for people who've progressed past the use of a cane. I will probably never reach that point. Not to mention it's expensive and time-consuming to do the training since you have to start from puppyhood. I'm already taking off school to learn braille I don't want to have to also take off school to train a dog.

Pippin. Ha, nice name.

So I'm guessing you're from the US? Do you have to train your own guide dogs? I didn't realise. In the UK (where I'm from) as far as I'm aware charities train them and then give them to people who need them (or are deemed to need them).

But I don't know much about it beyond what I've seen in documentaries unfortunately.