Bryan Bashin (LightHouse for the Blind and Visualy Impaired, San Francisco) and Theresa Stern (Guide Dogs for the Blind) sit down to debate the merits, drawbacks, pros and cons of white canes and guide dogs.
Will Butler:
You're listening to the Be My Eyes podcast. I'm Will Butler, and this week an episode you're not going to want to miss, the big question facing blind and low vision people, should I get a cane or a dog?
Will Butler:
I remember when I picked up a cane for the first time. It was one of the hardest, but most important things I ever did. But despite the amazing independence it's given me, there's this question people always ask me, have you ever thought about getting a guide dog? The answer is of course I've thought about it, but I don't know everything that goes into getting a dog. And so, I decided to pull two experts on canes and dogs. That's Bryan Bashin from the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco, and Theresa Stern from Guide Dogs for the Blind, the organization that trains guide dogs just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, California. Theresa and Bryan are going to break down exactly why you would want a cane or a dog, the pros, the cons, the real talk. It's not a discussion of which one is better, but an exploration of which one is right for you.
Will Butler:
Before we dive in though, we are almost done with our first Be My Eyes podcast giveaway and you have one more chance this week to win a pair of Envision AI glasses. Those are Google glasses powered with the Envision AI technology. And if you don't know what they are, go to bemyeyes.com/envision. That's also where you'll find the form where you can enter to win. That's E-N-V-I-S-I-O-N.
Will Butler:
So Envision basically does what a dog or a cane can't do, read text, identify signs and objects and images. Try downloading the app from the app store to play around with it. But instead of having me tell you all about how Envision AI works, we bought in Jose from Florida, who uses the Envision AI glasses on a daily basis, and he's going to tell us a little bit about how it helps him out in his life. Jose, welcome to the podcast. Why don't you give us the rundown about how do you use Envision AI.
Jose:
So one of the main questions I get about my Envision glasses is what I love about the product. And as a person who's visually impaired or totally blind for that matter, the Envision glasses, it gives me my independence back. I'm able to go out and go to a restaurant and read the menu, and when it comes to paying my bills, I can go ahead and check out what cash I have in my pocket. And while I'm navigating around with my white cane, I'm able to avoid obstacles and not bump into things, so I really love that about the glasses.
Jose:
And then when I need sighted assistance, the Envision glasses gives me the ability to call an ally, where I can call a friend or family member through a video call and anything that I'm looking at, they're able to see and give me that sighted assistance even though they're not right in front of me. So I really like that about the product.
Jose:
As a blind man, a professional, it gives me a lot of independence in my workplace. If I don't have something in braille, I could just use my glasses to read it. When someone sends me a birthday card, I'm able to read whatever they wrote in the card. So the Envision glasses, for me, the short answer is, it gives me independence and that's the main thing I love about this product.
Will Butler:
Pretty cool. Thank you, Jose. I can't wait to try these on myself. I wish I could win them, but it's your opportunity now. All you have to do is go to bemyeyes.com/envision, enter to win, and you will find out soon enough by listening to the podcast who the winner is. So speaking of independence, here's your episode, what's the difference between a white cane and a guide dog.
Will Butler:
Yeah, well, okay. Welcome. Welcome to the Be My Eyes podcast Theresa and Bryan. I'm so excited because I don't think we've had either of you on the podcast and you're both such important people in my life. So welcome.
Theresa Stern:
Thank you so much. It's great to be here and great to be here with Bryan as well.
Bryan Bashin:
Yes. And Will, I love to work with you in all your incarnations.
Will Butler:
Yeah, Bryan. You were one of the first blind folks I met back several years ago and taught me everything I know about this wild and wacky world of ... Well, we still can't decide what to call it, blindness, visual impairment, low vision, vision loss. Everybody has a different favorite term, right?
Theresa Stern:
Absolutely.
Will Butler:
It's really great to have you both here. We are here today to talk to you both about something very specific and very close to all of our hearts, the thing that gets blind people around, the thing that allows us to travel independently, or in packs, canes and dogs. I'm a cane user myself, but I won't lie, I have considered getting a dog, especially in these times now, where we're home a lot more, and in my advanced stage of 31, I'm starting to settle down a tiny bit. So your mind starts to think, "Would it be nice to have a dog? What would that mean for me?" But I do love my cane as well, and so I wanted to bring you both here being that you are the experts. Theresa, maybe you could introduce yourself briefly and tell folks what you do for the Guide Dogs.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, sure. So I'm Theresa Stern and I'm the vice president of outreach admissions and alumni services at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California. I am blind myself and travel with my guide dog, his name is Wills.
Will Butler:
No, really?
Theresa Stern:
So close to you.
Will Butler:
I didn't know that, oh my goodness.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah.
Will Butler:
You're just trying to win this argument here.
Theresa Stern:
I am. I am. I have to use everything I can get if I'm having against Bryan.
Will Butler:
No, we're very clear, it's not an argument.
Theresa Stern:
No, it's not.
Will Butler:
This is a discussion of the benefits of both. Bryan, what do you do?
Bryan Bashin:
My day job is I'm CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco. I've been there for 11 years. I'm a cane user thus far, so far, and a lover of dogs, but never used one for mobility. I was a sighted child, a low vision in my early 20s, and now I have no useful vision at all, and so I have considered the interesting problem and interesting solutions about how to get around from all those standpoints. Our field is full of beautiful solutions and beautiful inventiveness about how to go about them
Will Butler:
Yeah, more than ever now. Now so more than ever, right? We're going to dive into the discussion of the philosophy behind canes and dogs and the theory and the reality. But I wanted to kick it off by just asking you very straight up, why you do what you do? And Bryan, maybe we can just jump off of what you were talking about. Why is that you carry a cane? And you don't have to frame it in reference to a dog. What does the cane do for you?
Bryan Bashin:
The cane was probably the single most powerful tool for my own personal autonomy. As a journalist, I needed to go where I needed to go and with as little trouble to myself and those around me as I can. And I recognize that I got what most blind people don't get, which is really extensive cane training. I was in a residential program. I got 360 hours of intensive cane training, two hours every day, all under sleep shades, because then I had a little bit of vision.
Bryan Bashin:
So it was pure cane training and it was relentless and it was in the philosophy of structured discovery, which means not just saying how do I get to the post office from here, how I do get to the chemistry building on campus, but how do I get myself out of a jam in general and how do I use all the tools available to me to do that. So it's a sort of gestalt about travel that I used.
Will Butler:
For the listeners, how does a cane, just a simple white long stick essentially, get you out of a jam? I think a lot of people don't understand that. How could we explain it for folks?
Bryan Bashin:
When I first started cane travel, for the first three weeks of my training I couldn't see how this thing could work. And something clicked in around three weeks in, and suddenly I realized by using the cane, a long cane, long light cane properly, I'm looking around. I'm looking for the clear path, I'm looking for edges. I'm looking for cues about where I want to be. I'm also making a little acoustic bit, like a bat, and I'm using a cane sound to echo locate at the same time.
Bryan Bashin:
These are serious Olympic level skills to do beautifully and gracefully and it takes, like I said, 360 hours of training and probably thousands of hours to master. And I say that as a point of privilege because I think maybe not one person in a hundred in the blind community had the privilege to go though all that training.
Will Butler:
Yeah. God, I probably had three hours if I'm being generous.
Bryan Bashin:
Yeah. And I just think that you can't see the beauty and power of a cane until you get that, and the 10 hour rehab authorization is, just in my professional opinion, malpractice.
Theresa Stern:
Yes.
Will Butler:
Wow. I don't know if we're talk about rehab today, but we're going to talk about how long it takes to become that proficient with a dog as well. Gosh, I mean, for myself, learning to use a cane was just a complete unstructured mayhem. I don't know if we could even call it discovery. But there is a self taught I think methodology that a lot of people are forced to go on, maybe that leads to some misconceptions about the cane. But before we go into all that, Theresa, why do you use a dog and what does a dog do for you as a blind person?
Theresa Stern:
Well, I work with a dog. I also use a cane too on occasion. I've been visually impaired all my life and have low vision and learned how to use a cane in grammar school, under blindfold, which was great, because I actually really learned how to depend on my cane. And then, just over time, I've always been a dog lover, so I've always loved that relationship piece, and I met some friends, actually when I used to work at the Lighthouse many years ago, who had guide dogs and I just really admired the way they got around, through crowds and things like that. In my opinion, it seemed a little bit easier. Plus, the whole partnership or relationship was really a draw to me personally. Everybody has a little bit different reason. At the heart of things, I think that's it for me, I like that teamwork situation.
Will Butler:
What does a dog do that a cane doesn't?
Theresa Stern:
Poop. Sorry.
Will Butler:
That's true.
Theresa Stern:
Gosh, they're so different. There's advantages to both. What's a little bit different about a dog, and this is what you'll talk to pretty much anybody who has a guide dog or whoever's trained one would say, the greatest advantage to a dog and the greatest disadvantage to a dog is that they have a brain. So they are thinking and they remember places that you've been before. So if I'm often going to a similar place, I can just easily swoop over and get to the door, take me straight to do the door handle or whatever, because they get around like a sighted person.
Theresa Stern:
But again, the memory situation, that remembering, that brain piece could also be a disadvantage as well because I've heard so many stories. One of my favorite people, Bryan knows this person, Will probably does too, Kathy Knox, she passed away not too long ago. But she always told the story about when she was in college, that she had her guide dog, and you know how you have your classes and you go from sociology to chemistry to world history or whatever is, and so if she wanted to skip chemistry, let's say, the dog would be like, "No, no, no, we go from this place to that place, to that place."
Theresa Stern:
So that's where the brain can sometimes get in the way, and they also have an opinion about things that they want to do. But as far as getting around obstacles smoothly is a really great part for me. I move faster with a dog. I was a lot of times getting the cane caught in the sidewalk and things like that and hitting myself in the stomach.
Will Butler:
That's something you hear a lot of frustration about, getting poked in the stomach with your cane and I hear about that a lot. I assume that there's some technique to it that can prevent that from happening. I've also heard that the cane is an object locator and the dog is an object avoider. Is that accurate, Theresa?
Theresa Stern:
That's correct. That's correct. So those fundamental skills Bryan was talking about, orientation, mobility skills, learning the cane and how a cane will detect obstacles is one very small part of that whole knowledge base that somebody needs to know. So in order to learn how to work with a guide dog, who's going to be avoiding obstacles, which might be used as landmarks for folks, you really have to be aware of your other senses for determining where you are in space, so that you can maintain orientation.
Will Butler:
Well, speed is certainly a thing that people are really a fan of with the dogs. I know that people with canes sometimes are hesitant to move quickly. How does the dog actually allow you to move faster? It seems like you could still have objects whizzing past you and have potential to bump into stuff. The dog has that sort of spacial sense to navigate you through spaces that quickly?
Theresa Stern:
Yeah. Yeah, they do. I think also people tend to see you and get out of your way as well. It seems to part the seas if you're looking at pedestrian obstacles. But yes, they can start to move prior to where you're walking with a cane and there's, let's say, an outdoor café table or something, your cane will hit the table, and move to the left or move to the right, where the dog can see that obstacle coming and start slowly moving you to the left to go around it, which gives you that smoother flow, so less stops and starts.
Will Butler:
Less angles, yeah. Bryan, I'm wondering, it seems like avoiding obstacles is the name of the game. Why would a blind person actually want to be bumping into things? Why would they be using the object locator device?
Bryan Bashin:
Because you know where you are, because you learn things about the environment. I have had occasion to work with a dog and I can glide through block after block, but I have this feeling that's different from when I use a cane, which is like where the hell am I? What did I just pass? I don't know if there's a tree, a wall, a grassy area, whatever. The dog conveyed me safely down a street, but I know nothing about it. And for the next time I go and the time after that, I want to learn something about that area.
Bryan Bashin:
So the other thing is I'm comfortable with who I am as a blind person, it doesn't bother me that my 65 inch cane touches a wall or touches a tree or whatever. I know how to get around it. I never have my cane stab me in the stomach. I use the right technique, this is not an issue for me.
Theresa Stern:
I'm coming to you for lessons, Bryan.
Bryan Bashin:
I think if you want intimacy with your environment, the cane is a wonderful probe. The level of subtlety that you can get with, say, understanding the texture of objects, concrete, aggregate, asphalt, all of those things, you get a wonderful instantaneous feedback on it. And so that's why I really, really appreciate and don't see this as a problem that my cane touches something.
Will Butler:
Yeah. Well, as blind people, there's only two ways to learn our environment, we either have to touch it or someone has to tell us about it. Well, the dog's not going to talk to you, right? So I can see that you have to make contact in order to discover, right? And I guess those are just two major benefits, right? Do you want to move at graceful angles through space quickly and get to where you're going in the most direct line, or are you the type of person who cares about learning those nooks and crannies and being really discovering the environment that way. Do people ever use canes and dogs at the same time? Someone asked me this the other day.
Theresa Stern:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I'm so glad you brought that up, Will, because that is something working at Guide Dogs, we always encourage people to at least keep a folding cane in their backpack, a purse if they can, because sometimes there are things that you want to explore. You might want to teach them where the pedestrian light signal is or something like that, or where the mailbox is. So you might want to find that with your cane first, teach your dog, and then put a name to it, and then say, "Find the post box," or whatever, and then the dog would go straight there. But in order to do that, you have to have the cane too. So I just couldn't stress more how important it is to have those cane skills.
Theresa Stern:
And then also, tactile skills, like I said, are important for getting around. Using a guide dog, although I'm not getting the tactile feedback from the cane, I am getting proprioceptive feedback as to how my body is moving, am I going uphill or downhill. I'm tuning into my ears more to hear what's going on, and different senses, where the sun is and those kind of things, which I think are also really key to having really good orientation skills.
Will Butler:
Yeah, I should walk that back a little bit. I mean, obviously we don't just experience our environments through touch or someone telling us, we can smell it, we can hear it, there's such a rich experience of your environment without actually putting your hand on it. What does that look like though? Can you paint a picture of what it would like to teach your guide dog something on the fly? Are you taking off its harness? What does that look like?
Theresa Stern:
No. No. The way that we do it, different schools are probably different or whatever, but we use positive reinforcement, which is usually kibble or a special toy, but it's usually ... We use a lot of Labradors, so kibble is like the number one. What I might do is find the pole, let's say, with my cane, right? And I'd have Wills, that's my guide dog, on heel, so he'd be right next to me. And I'd find it, I'd touch it with my cane, touch it with my finger and give him a treat and say, "Good boy. Good boy." And then I move back a couple steps and then as he shows initiative to go towards that pole, then a good boy, gets another kibble.
Theresa Stern:
So it only takes a few minutes and then they remember it too, so trying to find an ATM that's on a wall and that kind of thing, that's where the dog can be handy because they will then remember well, that's the place that I got a treat or I got loved up on, so I know mom wants that.
Will Butler:
That's really interesting. You say the dog has a brain, but that implies the dog is deciding that it wants to go to Starbucks today, but really what you're doing is, correct me if I'm wrong, you're creating a library, taking advantage of the dog's memory to create a library of things that it recognizes and guides you towards.
Theresa Stern:
I love that. That's a great phraseology, I'm going to use that, but yeah, that's very much the same. And then, they can tend to start to generalize. I find at airports and things like that as we're leaving, he's looking for doors out. He remembers and they really want to show you stuff, because it's a game to them. They don't think of it as anything other than this is a game and how I'm going to get her happy, which is the ultimate goal, to make me happy and to get a cookie.
Will Butler:
But you don't actually physically use a cane and a dog at the same time, right?
Theresa Stern:
No. Some people will use a support cane and a dog at the same time. Definitely we see that a lot, especially if you need a little more assistance with balance going up and down curbs or stairs. And then I have a guy that I work with at Guide Dogs, Jake, who's been using his cane and his dog at the same time to help to try to ... In areas where you know that they're doing social distancing for lines and things now and you know how crazy that is right now with the pandemic. So he can use his cane to feel ahead of him to make sure that there's enough room, space, between him and the other people. So it's a technique that he's doing. So we're always looking at new stuff.
Will Butler:
Have you been able to teach the dogs six feet social distancing yet?
Theresa Stern:
No, afraid not.
Will Butler:
Yeah, that's a new one for them. The two of you know each other. You've obviously have known each other a while, but you work together as well in this partnership to support a mutual mobility program. Bryan, can you tell me a little bit about the concept there?
Bryan Bashin:
Sure. We imagined this a few years ago. I was talking at the beginning of the program how few bind people have the opportunity to get the proper amount of cane travel instruction. So even in cases where they've decided the dog is the right choice for them, they may not be good travelers or safe enough travelers, so that if the dog is distracted or ill, the person won't be in a really serious situation. So we thought, is there a way that we could have an emergent kind of program and get people who may not have had the opportunity for a lot of O and M to get up to the of level of basic O and M safety.
Bryan Bashin:
So we work with Guide Dogs and they were very receptive, and using the dormitories at the Lighthouse, we set about a program in which students who are going to GDB, but need the brush up on their O and M get it in an efficient time, not to sprawl it over an hour a week for months, but to just get her done in a week or so. And that's the program we set up, now I'm going to say three or even four years ago.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, at least.
Bryan Bashin:
Well, you can speak for GBD and say how the results are.
Theresa Stern:
The results are amazing. And again, like Bryan was saying, it is just criminal the lack of services that are available to people who are experiencing vision loss, in this country and Canada as well. So we fly people in from all over the US and Canada, hook them up with the Lighthouse, they've got a great residential program there. And then, their O and M instructors, we contract with them and use our O and M instructors to work together and really teach them the basics, along with some of those non-tactile skills that a lot of times if you only have three hours with somebody and they need to learn how to get to their mailbox, or whatever, they're basically learning how to do very little, you know what I mean? So they're not getting this whole, full version. So although it's just a beginning, but it's still a lot more than a lot of folks get.
Theresa Stern:
And it's been great as far as people either coming in to get a guide dog, we've had a lot of successes there. We've had people who had guide dogs in the past and have lost vision throughout their life, now they're vision's a little different, need to brush up on their skills for orientation. And then folks who come in and learn how to use the cane are like, "Hey, I love this. I'm going to just stick with the cane for now." We're like, "Cool, that's great. As long as you're getting around safely, we're happy."
Will Butler:
Wow.
Theresa Stern:
And it's a completely free program. We offer it free of charge.
Will Butler:
Oh wow, that's amazing. So look into that. Look for the Lighthouse, Guide Dogs program folks who are interested. I imagine there's really a risk that you ... I mean, people get very attached to their dogs, right Theresa? And some folks I'm sure, when the dog gets sick or is out of commission for whatever reason, don't have a lot of options for traveling because their skills aren't up to date. Is that the case?
Theresa Stern:
Yeah. I think that can be, that's why part of our criteria for coming in to learn to work with a guide dog is having those foundational skills in orientation and mobility, so that if your dog is sick, you can pull out your cane and take them to the vet, because it's a partnership. So yeah, it's really important to keep those skills up all the time.
Will Butler:
I want to pivot the emotional connection here, and maybe, Theresa, starting with you, what does it feel like to use your guide dog in public to get around? What is unique to that feeling?
Theresa Stern:
Gosh, I think I mentioned it earlier, I like dogs, I like being out with dogs, I like working with animals. I do horseback riding and things like that too, so I like that synergistic relationships. So for me it feels great to get out.
Will Butler:
Yeah, feel free to just kind of-
Theresa Stern:
I love it. It's fun. It's fun.
Will Butler:
It's fun. It's fun. Wow.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, it's fun. So I think that's part of it for me, but for everybody obviously it's always a little different.
Will Butler:
People do not think of blindness as fun, Theresa, I'm just letting you know.
Theresa Stern:
Oh come on, it's totally fun.
Will Butler:
The average person does not think of this as fun, but you're saying that with a dog, you actually ... I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're injected with some sense of positivity?
Theresa Stern:
I feel like that. I feel like that even when I'm out with a cane now that I'm a little more confident now. It's weird, I was not that confident going places on my own at first before I had a guide dog with just a cane, and now if I leave the dog at home and I'm just using my cane, I feel more confident. So I think a takeaway for folks who maybe are losing vision or just aren't that comfortable traveling, the key is you've just got to get out and do it and take the knocks whichever way you can, because at the end of the day, I think that's what holds people back. It's not the dog or the cane or whatever, it's the attitude.
Will Butler:
That's really fascinating, because a dog can actually make you more confident with a cane.
Theresa Stern:
It's weird, right?
Will Butler:
Yeah.
Theresa Stern:
It's just I'm more confident in me, so that's [crosstalk 00:25:33]-
Will Butler:
It reminds me of sometimes when I go on vacation alone, when I go traveling alone, and maybe I go to some really foreign place and it's tough. I'm not going to lie, it's tough. Being alone in Berlin is hard. Then I come home and it's so much easier to just run to the grocery store, you know what I mean?
Theresa Stern:
Right. No, we've got this.
Will Butler:
Yeah, because you challenged yourself to do more, right?
Theresa Stern:
Yeah.
Will Butler:
Bryan, I'm wondering what it feels like to use a cane, but also maybe for these purposes, it might be interesting to compare to how you felt when you were a low vision adult and not using a cane as well, right?
Bryan Bashin:
Well, I know that when I was low vision and trying to hide and pass like so many people who have low vision, or transitioning in their visual status ... So I know that there were years that I just ... If something was an event at night and I couldn't see well, I'd just maybe not go, or if I couldn't find the bus stop deep at night and all those things. I've heard it from a thousand people, you start self-limiting what it is that you can do or are willing to do. And then there's dangers, right? Without a cane, you can fall down, you can be misapprehended as somebody who's maybe drunk or on drugs or whatever.
Bryan Bashin:
The white cane ... By the way, exactly now, 2021, it's the 100th anniversary of the white cane, a little history excursion. There was a photographer in the west of England in Bristol. Then, men carried canes as a routine. He became blind and there was another newfangled thing that was happening on the streets of Bristol, which is lots of cars. And he didn't think that the common canes would be visible enough, and so he created the first white cane in 1921 and it caught on there and across the channel. And by the early 1930s, there was tens of thousands of these things. At that time, the cane was not used so much as this tool of probing your environment so you could stay safe interrogation, it was just a marker so that other people ... You would be more passive, but other people would avoid you. So we've come a long way in a hundred years.
Bryan Bashin:
But what is it like for me? I just want to be Bryan in the world. I want to go to a business meeting or a cultural meeting and I just do not want a lot of fuss around me. I'm a dog person, I've had pet dogs for many, many years, I love their company. In the end I just want to get around, I don't want to focus on my dog or my mobility tool. I simply want to enter a meeting, and go see, when we used to go to films and music or whatever, just go.
Bryan Bashin:
There's a parallel to it, which is when a woman carries around a new child, goes to some place with that child, all everybody talks about is the baby. And that's fine except when the woman doesn't want to talk about the baby. I feel like the presence of a dog in social situations is a remarkable one, but I may not want to talk about a dog all the time. I might want to talk about why I went to the meeting in the first place. And so there's a purity in just being myself with a cane.
Bryan Bashin:
Now, as I say, I have had the privilege of getting exceedingly good cane travel training and the message I want to send is please do not judge what is possible with a cane if you've had 10, or 20, or 40 hours of cane training. That is not anymore like using a cane as walking into a small airplane and saying that you can fly is flying.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, good point.
Will Butler:
I'm getting it's the low maintenance option. It's the low maintenance, but high effectiveness. The baby analogy's interesting too, because it's not like we don't like babies, but you might not want to bring it everywhere. What do you say though to this maybe young person who feels like I've got a diagnosis, an ominous diagnosis, a vision condition, or just a fear, because this is all very new? A dog just seems very appealing I think to people, and I think a lot of people's friends and family would much more likely encourage them to get a dog and then a cane. I know that when I was just, before I even started using a cane, my family suggested to me to get a dog first. And I think that's the uneducated or undereducated response to blindness. Do either of you want to make a comment on that at all?
Theresa Stern:
I would love to because we do get people calling all the time whose wife thinks it would be great if he had a dog, or the neighbor thinks it would be great. You know what? The number one thing, most importantly is if you're just losing your vision, you need to adjust to that transition and throwing a dog in the mix is just going to complicate things, you're not ready yet. Some people might be, but in general what we find is that people need to adjust to their vision loss, adjust to being cool with being a blind person, walking around with a cane and learning your cane skills, and then you can add the dog in if you want to. Or you can do more extensive, like Bryan, and become the ultra cane man out there too. So it is not the first step at all in your blindness journey.
Bryan Bashin:
I like what Theresa said. I just say try everything.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah.
Bryan Bashin:
I know people who as young people tried dogs and then stopped using them. I know people who stayed away from dogs their whole life and at 65 got a dog and loved it and it worked out well for them. So it really depends upon what you need at that stage of your life I would say. I trust the individual to say what works for them.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah.
Will Butler:
So having a mobility aid, mobility device ... Do you prefer aid or device? Mobility-
Bryan Bashin:
Tool?
Will Butler:
Tool.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, probably tool.
Will Butler:
I think mobility tool does make you stick out and being blind or low vision is as much about our own skills as it is about how you are treated in public. So let's talk about the pros and cons of how people treat you with these tools. Let's start with dogs. Pros to having a dog in public, Theresa?
Theresa Stern:
Well, okay. Everything has the pro and the consultancy, right? Pros to having a dog in public is that a dog is an icebreaker or a social bridge. People are going to come up, they're going to talk to you, because they remember when they were in the third grade and had a Labrador, you know what I mean? It triggers something about them that makes you more in some way more relatable and they just can't help themselves. And that's the other part, the con, that can also be a con, like Bryan was saying. I'm going on a date with some new guy and I want to be able to give my attention to him and not be answering everybody who walks by our table saying, "How old's your dog?" So it has both connotations.
Theresa Stern:
The other, I perceive it as a con anyway for me knowing how much work I've put into my orientation and mobility, knowing how much work most people put into it is that people sometimes will think that the dog knows where it's going and the dog is the one leading, and that's not at all true. It's a partnership, and so that can be a little bit irritating as well in the public way.
Will Butler:
To be misjudged, yeah.
Theresa Stern:
But I have met a lot of wonderful people. I'm a social person, so I like having people come up and chat with me. And if I don't want that experience, I take my cane and leave the dog and it's great.
Will Butler:
I've heard about extroverted people liking dogs because they meet more people, and I've heard about introverted people liking dogs because it helps them get out of their shell a little bit, right?
Theresa Stern:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Will Butler:
Bryan, pros and cons? We need to emphasize the pros of using a cane and how people treat you once you have that cane in your hand, because I know there are so many listeners who are scared to take out that cane because it's embarrassing to them.
Bryan Bashin:
Yeah, because they've internalized self-loathing and ableist ideas about what's right in society and the position of people with disabilities. So that's the first thing is to check in. I know my reluctance 40 years ago when I put the first cane in my hand, I didn't want it. That is an issue with me and my relation to my blindness, it's not inherent about the cane or a dog. And there's many ways that one can get past that in terms of building a village, having peers and successful people and mentors, and carrying around with you the image of people just like you who are living the lives that they want. So that's all before we start talking about mobility tools.
Bryan Bashin:
The first benefit you get from a cane is what we talked about a hundred years ago, people instantly know you're blind instead of maybe on drugs and going down the street. So it's the first thing. The second thing is it keeps you safe, it's available 24/7. It doesn't have to go to the vet. It doesn't have to do all these things.
Will Butler:
The thing about people instantly knowing you're blind, can you explain to listeners why that's a good thing, why that's a pro, because I think a lot of people are still in the mindset of like I don't want people to know that my vision is reduced?
Bryan Bashin:
Well, from my perspective in life, I see blind not as a negative, sort of a neutral to mildly positive attribute. I know so many cool blind people. It is a slight positive thing to be called that blind guy, so that's where we are. Why do I want them to know it? I want them to know that I'm a human being who just accesses life in a different manner. Instantly people can understand I'm following a course, I'm on a purposeful mission and all of that. The cane is just one way I do things, there are many other ways that dog and cane users use similar techniques while using our tool.
Bryan Bashin:
We both have to be really good at engaging passers by and getting straight to the point and doing it in a positive and practical way. We both need to make instantly changing mental maps on the go. We both are in charge of our course. We both pay attention to things that sighted people never pay attention to. And in the scale of the mission, which is to get from point A to point B, I'd say the mobility tool is only a small part of what we need to do.
Will Butler:
So it's about being accommodated by the public, right? Not necessarily people doing things for you, but it's about communicating who you are. It's almost as essential as wearing clothing or something like that.
Bryan Bashin:
It's about being masters of our own fate, whichever tool we use.
Theresa Stern:
That's right. Yeah, exactly. I think sometimes people think oh, I don't want to use the cane because then people know I'm blind. Well, when you're walking out there with a guide dog, you are probably seen even more. I think, gosh, it's that attitude, right Bryan? It's the being okay with who you are, that's what gets you out the door.
Bryan Bashin:
Yeah. In my training program, it's interesting because they issued me the long white cane that couldn't fold or I couldn't hide. I hated that my first few days. I didn't want to be seen as that blind person, but the program correctly understood that you have to go through this period of well, the perilous outing, right? You need to come out of the closet and be comfortable as a blind person in space and being part of the world. And until you do that, till you shatter it inside yourself, and not only just theoretically, but emotionally, no, you have a right to walk on the sidewalk, you're just as human as anybody else and you do it differently. We talk a lot about diversity, is it lip service or is it really something we love?
Will Butler:
And if I may offer my own additional take on this, it's not just about accepting the inevitable, it's about freeing yourself up to do the things you want to do and to stop worrying about blindness, and unblocking yourself, so that you can meet your new partner or have the new job opportunity, or do the things that are fun, right? It's not just about okay, get over it, get over it, get over it, right?
Theresa Stern:
Yeah.
Will Butler:
It's about this whole world out there for you, but you're not going to access it unless you get these basic things figured out first.
Theresa Stern:
Absolutely.
Bryan Bashin:
Before I got good with a cane, I had a job offer that would require me to walk 15 blocks as a low vision guy across town, and I didn't know how I would do that to get a job that I would have loved. And if I would had said to newly blind people or people newly deciding they want to move about in the world, however long they've been blind, what Theresa and I can do, if I needed to, I could get on a plane in half an hour, go to a foreign city or a foreign country or wherever and do what I needed to do, planes, trains and automobiles, or planes, trains and canes as Mona Minkara has shared with us, and not feel anxious, and not worry, and not be in hyper vigilant mode. And I would never have thought that was possible when I was 20. And today I hardly ever think about it. That's the liberation of correctly using your tool, whether it's a dog or a cane.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, and being cool with yourself too. I think for me one of the most important things I've learned over my years is that if you're nervous about oh, I'm walking with my cane, I'm sticking out, or oh, I'm walking with my dog and everybody's looking at me, you know what? They really aren't, because they're just as worried about their stuff that's going on. So if you can, I don't know, like you said, unblock that piece I think that's it. You can teach yourself the rest of it.
Will Butler:
Here's an interesting thing, you two get along so well, but if I could dip into a little bit of criticism and negativity for a moment here, just for a moment, there has been very real scorn across the aisles, so to speak, or however you want to look at it. Much of it is not recent, it's in the past. It's a little bit of a lopsided thing. There's has been some scorn for dog users and it's obviously not coming from the public. The public love dogs, right? The sighted public love dogs, maybe too much, but it comes from within the community, and I don't know if there's a way that we can kindly assess this. 25 years ago, Bryan, you pointed me toward the addition of the braille monitor that created a lot of controversy because it was all about guide dogs, both for good and bad. Why is there scorn for dogs in our little, very small community that really shouldn't be divided? Theresa, let me start with you?
Theresa Stern:
That's a really good question. I think the way that the field grew up, it all grew up disjointedly. So even orientation and mobility, working with guide dog instruction, that's a new thing. So I think there's always been this pitting against, rather than realizing that real independence is choice. But I'm not exactly sure what the history of all of that was, but I do know that it's getting better and I think communication is getting better. I think as blind people, I think what we need to realize is we're not a huge group of people and we probably have a lot more in common than we do different and that we can get a lot more accomplished if we work together.
Will Butler:
Absolutely. Bryan, how do you account for this internal infighting?
Bryan Bashin:
Guess what? Blind people are human. You write with a Mac, I use a PC.
Will Butler:
Right. Right. That's true.
Bryan Bashin:
I could tell you all the reasons why I don't want to use a Mac for writing. It's okay if we have a difference of opinion. You are free to buy whatever tool you want and so do I. The old version, we've spent a generation talking about diversity, all of that, there is not a one mono-culture blind person in the world. The injustice to fight for is having people be forced to say there is one solution here. There are many reasons why a cane or dog is the right thing for you. The statistics are interesting, there're about 1.5 million people who are blind and visually impaired in the United States, 90% of them use nothing as a mobility guide.
Theresa Stern:
Nothing, yes.
Bryan Bashin:
This is the real outrage we need to focus on.
Theresa Stern:
Yes.
Bryan Bashin:
90% of them are not moving out of the house.
Theresa Stern:
Thank you.
Bryan Bashin:
And of the remaining 10% who may be by a hook or by crook, to coin a metaphor, 19 of the 20 use a white cane and 5% use dogs.
Theresa Stern:
That's right.
Bryan Bashin:
There's a lot of work to be done here to make sure the other 90% get their choice too. That's the real frontier.
Theresa Stern:
It really is, Bryan. Thank you for bringing that up. Guide Dog's working with AFB right now on a research study, trying to wrap our brains around all of that. It feels very discouraging when you know there's so many people that could benefit.
Will Butler:
That's interesting, because I think when there's marginalized groups, especially very small minorities like ours, there's a lot of pressure to form together in a monolith and do things the right way to, well, to be a strong group. But I think what I'm hearing from you, Bryan, is when it comes to all this, we have to get a bit more comfortable agreeing to disagree on no, I choose this, you choose this, but it doesn't make me dislike you as a person or look down on you, right?
Bryan Bashin:
I'm happy to say that feels like the last generation. Where people are now is what works best? Where I always say which is the state of blindness education, whether in K through 12 or for adults is extractable. It is so not worthy of the needs of mind. The professional incompetence of a 10 hour authorization on many things is what we really need to be fighting about, because there's beauty and capacity if somebody works well with a dog or with a cane, and the real issue is why aren't you getting what you need.
Will Butler:
Talk to me about the 10 hours authorization, because I don't think a lot of people are going to understand this. You get your cane or you get your dog, and then you go to the State of California who will pay for a lot of your stuff, and what happens?
Bryan Bashin:
And they say, "Oh okay, you've just enrolled at the university and yeah, of course you need to know how to get to your class. We'll send an O and M specialist to teach you how to get to the library and then get to the cafeteria and then get home." And so you learn those things. That lasts about six months until it's the new semester, then you have to learn it again. And so you get into this pattern where rather than looking deeply at the fundamental possibility of blind people can teach themselves how to get around once you have the deep principles understood, instead of that you have a bandaid, bandaid, bandaid, bandaid. Somebody's vision changes, another bandaid. Some class changes, there's a road detour, another bandaid.
Bryan Bashin:
And so, the check issuing capacity of a department of rehabilitation is such like, "Oh yeah, I'll give you five hours to work with a professional to teach you this and five hours here." That does not get the kind of deep skills. Look at what Guide Dogs use, three weeks of constant training in a residential setting. That's, what, 150 hours of training, something like that?
Theresa Stern:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bryan Bashin:
That's worthy of a blind person because it's subtle and it's beautiful, but you've got to put in the work. If departments of rehab are not giving you ... Like I said, I had 360 hours of training in my center. If they're not giving you that, they're not getting at what you need to remove barriers to living independently and successful employment.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, I feel like it's akin to having the first year high school Spanish and be expected that's all you need to know, because if you can ask how to get to the bathroom and where the library is, or whatever, but that's all you get, and it's not even nearly enough, it's pathetic.
Will Butler:
So to get these people to do 150 hours, Theresa, because, I mean, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a cute fluffy dog that's going to be your best friend, or is it more a funding and bureaucratic thing? How has Guide Dogs set this up, so that you can do a three week training?
Theresa Stern:
Well, we don't depend on any government funding, so it's all privately funded. Our orientation and mobility program's privately funded, because at the end of the day, we've got the money to do it and we need to do it and it's just not happening otherwise.
Will Butler:
Fundraising, that sort of thing? We're almost in politics here now, but Bryan, why is that privately funded model not something that's universal on the cane training side?
Bryan Bashin:
Well, I would say there are 252 agencies in the United States that are concerned about training the blind in some way, shape or form and the vast majority of those agencies are living hand to mouth, red lining, ma and pa operations, or medium sized, and frankly the model of the top half dozen guide dog schools in this country use very professional fundraising techniques and they have a very saleable object that's concrete and understandable. And so, the enormous financial success of guide dog schools makes it possible for them to offer this excellent training. Sister blindness agencies that don't have that are hurting, and it's only the rare blindness agency that doesn't offer dogs that has the financial capacity to offer significant cane travel.
Will Butler:
It sounds to me like you're saying it's marketing, it's how blindness is marketed.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, there's always branding, right? That's your background isn't it, Will?
Will Butler:
Well, the problem is we don't have puppy canes, right?
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, no, it's true. I think people relate to dogs because they had dogs growing up, or the relationship between a person and a dog, that human-animal bond is strong, and so it's like you said, it's marketable. I think that's why at Guide Dogs we've really taken on this that we want to broaden our services and help to fill in the gaps, whereby working with agencies, local agencies, to help provide some of these services. A lot of the money, it depends on who's in power in the government at the time and their ideas of where the money should be spent. And so yeah, it's a big puzzle.
Will Butler:
So whereas there's some scorn for dogs, internally in our community, or there was at least in the past, for canes it's not really scorn so much as it is stigma, and I wondered, Bryan, if you could tell me a little bit about what is the stigma, the misconceptions that the sighted public has about canes that we internalize also that keep us from picking them up in the first place? What are they thinking when they see us walking around with a white stick? They call it a stick all the time.
Bryan Bashin:
Well, they is many different communities. We're lucky, all three of us, to have had our background in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, where people are in general fairly enlightened. They've seen what a cane is and they know what to do about it for the most part, but you can travel around and not too far where you find people from other countries, or travel to other countries, who have never seen a person on a street using a white cane and don't know what it is and might just assume you're just a sighted guy with a pole and just crash into you. I've seen this in advanced first world countries.
Bryan Bashin:
The number of independent travelers, I'll go travel with someone and I'll say, "Do you see any blind people walking here," and this is like France, no, nobody. A day will go by, you won't see a single blind person walking with a cane. In the Bay Area, it's pretty hard these days not, if you watch, to find blind people just walking around the community. So that's the first thing. They is composed of people who have experience with white canes. We're, what, one third of 1% of the population. There're about as many blind people as there are dentists or lawyers in the United States. So people in general have seen blind people going around, know people, went to school with people, are coworkers with them.
Bryan Bashin:
But then the question of stigma, I think it is the fact that this is a quick indication that suddenly, round a corner and there's a blind person. And I don't think it's so much the cane as it is the shock of recognition that could be seen at a hundred feet with a cane, might not be seen until five feet if you didn't have a cane. So your question I think is deeper than that, which is what is it like to be out as a blind person in public? If a hundred years from now we're using some super digital tool instead of a cane or whatever, or a robo dog or whatever we're going to use, it's still going to be that same issue, a fresh connection with difference and that's the real question about how in this culture are we receptive to profound difference.
Will Butler:
Wow. And the final thing as we go through this comparison is I think the love for dogs is obvious. Humans have such a deep connection to dogs. Can you think of any stories, Theresa, or anecdotes that show how much blind and low vision folks really do love their guide dogs?
Theresa Stern:
Gosh, yeah. I think you just need to talk to someone. I think a guide dog because they're going pretty much everywhere with you and experiencing the world with you, it becomes a very strong bond, a very strong relationship, much like a working dog might with maybe ... I think of the old sheep herders and the dog, they just do like a little hand sign and the dog knows what that person ... That bond is just so strong, that can be a really beautiful thing, that they feel like a soul mate, right?
Will Butler:
Yeah.
Theresa Stern:
But I think that can be also a difficult part and why many people choose either to not get a second dog after they've lost their first dog, or just don't want to try it all, because they know it's going to be hard to say goodbye. And each one of my dogs has taught me something new, just like being another person, right?
Will Butler:
Yeah.
Theresa Stern:
So I guess it's relationships.
Will Butler:
How many have you had, Theresa?
Theresa Stern:
I've had four.
Will Butler:
Wow, four dogs?
Theresa Stern:
Four dogs.
Will Butler:
And how long do they work usually?
Theresa Stern:
Well, it depends. So my first guide dog, she worked for about four years. She got really sick and passed away and they're still not sure what happened with her, and so that was very difficult. And my second dog, Astaire, he worked for about five years, so he was a short term dog. He was a dog that you'd do the work and he was okay with it, but he burnt out. He's like, "Yeah, I can't, I'm done," because they're like us, some of us want to retire early. And then my last one, Dario, he worked till he was 10. And this guy, Wills, I know he'll work forever, because he can't get enough, he always wants to go. But I think the average age when a dog retires is about 10 years old and they're about two when you get them.
Will Butler:
I'm sure people have tattoos dedicated to their dogs and monuments built in their homes for all their dogs and everything like that. I'm sure there's some degree of fanaticism amongst a certain population of guide dog lovers, right?
Theresa Stern:
Yes. And the puppy raisers, the people who raise the dogs to start with. I mean, Guide Dogs is big community of people that are pretty dog crazy.
Will Butler:
Bryan, I wanted to ask you, would you say you love your cane?
Bryan Bashin:
No. Do you love your keyboard?
Will Butler:
That's not what I expected you to say. I expected you to take a stand for it, Bryan. You were going to say, "Yes, I love my cane." Explain this to me, what's your thinking here?
Bryan Bashin:
I have a neutral feeling about the physical object of the cane, what I love is the real grace and complexity of walking through the world using a white cane. At times, I've tried to do radio pieces where, as I walk, I just try to let people know what I'm doing. And unless you're an experienced cane user, you have no idea of the amount of information and subtlety, puzzles that you're going through. It's one the most intellectually and viscerally challenging things a human can do. It's like a decathlon every minute.
Bryan Bashin:
And as you walk through you're finding an edge, you're noticing materiality, you're echo locating, you're remembering something in relation to something else, you're finding landmarks, you're building mental maps and you're doing it in real time while you're flying the plane and it takes every bit of your proprioceptive savvy to be able to do this gracefully and quickly. So I'm fully met as a blind person, maybe anybody will do in any kind of subtle sport, it is fully a sport. And to a sighted person, they just see oh, there's blind guy, oh, his cane touched that fence. They have no idea of the beauty of it.
Will Butler:
Yeah, uh-oh, he's in trouble.
Bryan Bashin:
Or the surprising things you might notice, like the tap of your cane creates the echo locative ripple of each picket of the fence post, which you can hear easily, and on and on and on. So the cane itself is just a piece of carbon fiber, but the cane in the universe is one of the more challenging and rewarding activities I ever have done.
Will Butler:
That's beautiful. And the final thing I want to talk about is the phases of life that we go through and how that might affect your decision to decide whether or not to get a dog or really rely on your cane skills. Theresa, for young people, for the parents who are listening trying to decide if this is right for their kids, what do you tell them about getting a dog?
Theresa Stern:
It's different for everyone obviously. We've served kids as young as 14 and people as old in their 90s, so there's definitely people that it's a good choice for depending on their life. But for kids especially, you have to think about the responsibility of having an animal in your life and how the people ... Like if you're going to a really crazy high school, where people are throwing marshmallows around and it's just a crazy environment, adding a dog to that type of environment could be really, really difficult.
Theresa Stern:
And you have to have the empathy to understand that you're a team and that how you treat your dog is how your dog will behave. So there's a maturity that comes in there to understand that I arrived at the wrong place, well, we arrived at the wrong place. It wasn't because the dog didn't get me there, it's because we didn't do it together, if that makes any sense. Understanding how to take care of an animal's anxiety, or their ... It's a being, right? So that empathy piece has to be there and those are really the big ones.
Theresa Stern:
Also, the independent mobility I think is absolutely key. Part of our acceptance criteria, whatever you might want to call it, would be that you're independent, you're getting around on your own already. A lot of kids aren't, they're being shuffled from place to place, mom and dad. So that time when you're working, just you and your dog working as a team, that can't develop if you're not out doing that already.
Will Butler:
And what about a parent maybe who is blind deciding is it appropriate for me to get a guide dog with my there year old and my five year old in the house?
Theresa Stern:
Absolutely, yes, you can do that. But again, it just depends on your life. For me, a three year old, that would be a lot already, so to add a dog to that. You have to be able to meet the emotional needs of the dog as well as the physical needs of the dog. So for some people, yeah absolutely, it's a great time to bring a dog into the mix. For other people, they've got enough going on as it is and they don't really have the bandwidth really to put a dog in that.
Will Butler:
So Bryan, for the busy person, for the jet setter, for the night owl living their life in bars and clubs, or just for someone I guess who doesn't have the empathy ... No. Someone who is looking for that skillfulness of using the cane and the flexibility, what are the phases of life where people are going to find that cane most liberating?
Bryan Bashin:
Gosh, I've seen people start with a cane in their 70s and do extraordinarily well, and I've seen people who are lifelong cane users, like I said earlier, and then maybe they've lost a little bit of their hearing, or maybe they might be a little more unsteady than they were, or maybe they're just plain old and can start with a dog in their 60s. So I wouldn't want to give a hard and fast rule here. As I said, I've never had a formal guide dog, but I wouldn't rule it out in my future either.
Will Butler:
Whoa, a twist.
Bryan Bashin:
I'm really interested in learning and I may find that that may be something that I want to do in some future incarnation, so by all means.
Will Butler:
It's kind of fun to consider I think, it's why not, never want to quite take it off the docket completely, right? I feel the same way as you, Bryan, I don't have one now, but I'm not going to rule it out.
Theresa Stern:
Well, what I was thinking was I'll give you some dog walks, Bryan, can teach me his technique for not stabbing myself in the stomach with my cane.
Bryan Bashin:
You've got a deal.
Theresa Stern:
All right, sounds good.
Will Butler:
That's perfect. Well, that's a good note to leave it on. Thank you guys both for being with me. This has been an amazing discussion and I can't wait to share this with the world.
Theresa Stern:
Yeah, it was so much fun. And really, both of you, I learned a lot just hearing your interpretations of things and I think, Bryan, you and I are both just on the war path about the lack of services. It's exhausting.
Bryan Bashin:
Well, what we've found is the partnerships are great.
Theresa Stern:
Yes.
Bryan Bashin:
Guide Dogs, Lighthouse, that's a warm and productive thing where we both are greater than the sum of our parts.
Theresa Stern:
Yes.
Bryan Bashin:
And I would that other parts of the world find that relationship, don't ghettoize into one tool or the other, but be really serious that a person's got to get out in the world one way or the other, cannot limit their options by being immobile.
Will Butler:
Well, please, if anyone is listening and wants to know more, reach out to the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco, and to Guide Dogs for the Blind not far off in San Rafael. And I'm sure Bryan or Theresa or their deputies will be more than happy to help out. Thanks again both of you.
Theresa Stern:
Thank you.
Bryan Bashin:
Thank you, Will.
Will Butler:
Thanks for listening to the podcast everybody. This is the last time I'm going to remind you that you have a chance to win the Envision AI glass. Bemyeyes.com/envision. We'll see you next week.
