Dear Everyone, First, it's me, not Cindy who originally mentioned feeding dogs forbidden treats. Second, I don't feel that I, my pets, or the guide dog who was the most miraculous pressence in my life, have to be poster persons or poster dogs for perfect behavior or example setting. I don't think we need to legislate story telling and this list should be a sheltered enough place to tell casual, humorous or cautionary tales about dogs, cats kids or whatever. I do, however, understand, for the first time why some lists don't allow threads about child raising. It's because people feel so strongly about it that discussions about it can quickly get heated out of proportion. That's what's happened here. Many of us care so deeply about dogs, each in our own way, that we react strongly to issues concerning them. The original intent was to make light comments about real dogs in real life and not to smear any particular group or breed of dog or owner. I take responsibility for starting this dog strand, and will be more careful about wandering off topic. I know none of us meant to ruffle any feathers or fur, and we'll all be happy to get back to the fun of sharing books. Always With Love, Lissi ----- Original Message ----- From: Julie Morales To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 9:14 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: stories have powerful effects Maybe, for us, it's more like sneering at the owners, but for a sighted person who doesn't know blind people and doesn't know anything about guide dogs...well, that leaves a bad image in their minds about the dogs. It is their owners, a lot of times, for sure, but we know that. We're familiar with the training of guide dogs, and we're familiar with how the handlers are supposed to handle their dogs, but a sighted person may not be, and that's the scenario that worries most of us. We hit enough brick walls on our own without having to worry about a well-intentioned funny anecdote and what kind of effect that might have on someone. Take care. Julie Morales To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you need to be in their lives today. -- Unknown mercy421@xxxxxxxxxxx Windows/MSN Messenger (but not email): mercy0421@xxxxxxxxxxx ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Petraccaro To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 7:05 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: stories have powerful effects I think it's more a question of sneering at the owners. ----- Original Message ----- From: E. To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 6:34 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] stories have powerful effects Cindy I assume you mean pass along the story of the guide dog who was so disruptive because her person did not choose to control her. Pass it along if you must. I do notice that people tend to pass along stories of how badly a dog, particularly a guide dog behaves with a lot of glee. I think it is one thing to pass along stories among ourselves. I do get concerned when sighted people gleefully pass along stories about how badly a guide dog behaves, how poorly a guide dog is dealt with by his or her person and how a guide dog failed and did something wrong like run a light, run their person into something or whatever. Then sighted folks can use those stories to be hesitant about renting to those of us with dogs, or letting us into restaurants and so on. It may be illegal but all of us with dogs have had issues of access at one time or another. I know it is far from your intention to do this but be careful with stoires. They can have powerful results many unintentional. I am sorry if this sounds harsh but I have had a number of instances when sighted people just had to come up to me and tell me about bad behavior or guide dogs or their people. I am therefore overly cautious about stories of incidents particularly involving food. By the way, I have been with Seeing Eye dogs for over thirty years and do know those stoires from my own experience. But I would be careful telling them to restaurant owners or hotel operators or landlords, or cabbies, bus drivers and so forth. We still have barriers to access some of them fueled by lack of knowledge. E. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.