My Guide Dog

I'm autistic. I'm not legally blind. Yet I use a guide dog. How can that be?

It can be because I have a spatial processing disorder and sensory integration disorder. Both of these together mean I don't process my environment correctly neurologically. My senses that are most affected are sight and hearing with some touch affected too. Taste and smell aren't really for me. So when I'm walking I have trouble telling how far away things in my path are away from me, I walk into stuff all the time causing bruises, or worse. If I'm in a chaotic surroundings with lots of people moving and talking, lots of colors, lots of things all around me, my senses and brain almost shut down due to over load as there is too much too process and then I can get disoriented very quickly and seperated from whom ever I am with. I also have issues telling if cars are coming at me at street crossings. And where stairs and curbs start and end.

In effect I am at times visually impaired due to sensory impairment. There is nothing wrong with my ears or my eyes. But there is something not quite right with how my brain is wired to the signals those 2 things input, and things get jumbled up.

So I have J. I trained J since he was 5 months old to be my guide dog. He works the same way any other guide dog for a blind person does. He leads me around objects in our path, he stops at streets, stairs and finds curbs, he is trained to stay on the side walk, he will follow the people I am with on cue, he will find certain people on cue and he does many other things for me that help with these issues.

Right now J is 7. And right now I am applying to a guide dog school for my next guide in a year or two. I had been planning to train O to be my next guide but he has seizures and he also said he doesn't want that job, so he's going to a new home now where he'll be happier.

I am also currently going through O&M training (orientation & mobility training) to help me learn how to get around my environment more safely and how to get around without J if I need without getting hurt. I'm learning some in home techniques which are already helping and I'll soon be learning how to use a long cane (or white cane) for outside.

I worry a lot lately if J is happy being my guide. And if he will be happy at college with me. I hope so. I hope he doesn't want to retire soon. I still need him a lot and I depend on him a lot and I trust my life to him on a daily basis. He seems happy. But I worry sometimes.