Working with Guide Dog owners

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

Thomas Johnson — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 08:40:04 GMT

[quote user="Anthony Dennison"]

Just don't do what I did when I first graduated, and ask a Guide Dog owner to 'keep an eye on it'.

[/quote]

I was examining a retired guide dog owned by a blind couple recently and was discussing monitoring a small lump, and one of them said, "oh yes, we'll keep an eye on it."

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

Noweia — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 21:27:05 GMT

I tried to get along to the local vet school clinical club talk for this, but missed it due to work. A webinar would be useful for people to watch when they have time.

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

Anthony Dennison — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 12:26:52 GMT

Just don't do what I did when I first graduated, and ask a Guide Dog owner to 'keep an eye on it'.

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

J G Wray — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 11:37:48 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

There is no one size fits all approach to this and there is a danger of over-thinking it and of you not giving us credit for our present understanding of how to deal with these circumstances.

[/quote]

Quite. Furthermore, not giving those in practice credit for self criticism, self appraisal and adaptability might seem a tad patronising.

We have a degree of clarity about what clients, of any "type", want to know from any consultation, shortened for the value of brevity to the four Ps:

1.[P] Prognosis

2. [P] Pain

3. [P] Practicality

4. [P] Payment

We do not overthink any one component, but aim to strike a balance for all parts.

This is not original thinking.

Anecdote time - We have a GD owner who is an artist. They work with textured materials in sculptural forms. Anyway, they decided to branch out in sculpture and in order to practice for more expensive materials, went back to basics and mixed up some salt dough........her working dog is a labrador of course.

Q1. "Is she in pain?"

A1. "yup"

Q2. "What's going to happen?"

A2. "We're sorting it out and you're going to buy some better food containers"

Q3. "Is that all I need to do?"

A3. [I did not say this next bit - "Stop smoking so much weed and concentrate" - a dissolute teenager, who did not attend to their type1 diabetes and went blind]

Q4. "GD will be paying for this even though its my fault won't they?"

A4................................

The artist has moved on to more expensive materials and always brings in photos of their work. Communication works both ways and having a working relationship based on trust and time, or as it is more widely known, doing general practice, allows for moments of less explicit communication being a better thing.

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

Mary Fraser — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 11:29:39 GMT

Thank you both - yes I agree that the owners are fantastic and a lot of staff are brilliant at communication. Our study did find many good examples of consultations where staff supported owners very well. However, this was not always the case. There were examples of owners not being informed about what was happening in the consultation, getting medication in a format that wasn't user friendly for them, being told to wait in a room away from other clients, or not being told that there was someone else (eg. vet student) in the room with them.

So I agree that those people who are good at communication will be good at working with all clients. I suppose my main question therefore is how do we make everyone great at communication?

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

Hannah Wynne Richards — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 11:17:28 GMT

Guide dog owners tend to be brilliant at compliance...............probably because they're so dependant on that dog, that they're desperate for it to recover ASAP They definitely never think "It's just the dog"

Wynne

RE: Working with Guide Dog owners

Martin Atkinson — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 11:05:14 GMT

There is no one size fits all approach to this and there is a danger of over-thinking it and of you not giving us credit for our present understanding of how to deal with these circumstances.

IME most handicapped people want to be treated as normally as possible without making a bit issue highlighting it. I can honesty say apart from sorting out the responsibility for payment and the paperwork nothing changes when dealing with visually impaired people with guide dogs I'm just a bit aware that they may not be aware of what I'm doing so I may give more of a running commentary but I tend to do that anyway even with the normally sighted and I may be more likely to get a nurse into the consult room to assist with handling. Similarly with deaf clients we have a respectful combination of lip reading, sign language with a friend/relative who can hear and writing things down. The problem is with those who are in denial and won't admit they have a hearing issue - a bit like myself really!!

I don't think there is a bigger issue with compliance in fact I feel visually impaired people, being aware of the problem they may have, are better at finding ways of complying. If you find a way of getting normal pet owners to fully comply or admit when they haven't I'd be interested to hear about it.