The
first day was about orientation regarding the layout of the hotel. It looked
relatively easy to navigate as the corridors as they were long and straight, lined with
doors on both sides but I did notice that in the area between the two fire
doors where the three hotel rooms of Simon, Kevin and my hotel room were situated the
light was dimmer than the bottom half of the corridor. I navigated my way down
and up the corridors by walking alongside the wall with my finger or hand on
the wall and feeling my way to my hotel room by counting the doors as I walked
by. My hotel room was at one end and the
lounge was at the other end of the corridor on the opposite side, both between
two fire doors. I was very surprised to find that I had difficulties in locating
the lounge and my hotel room in what should have been an easy task and there
were times when I got exasperated however with some help from my instructor, I
was eventually able to navigate my way around the corridor and only
occasionally got it wrong.
Later
in the day, we attended our first talk in the lounge. The instructor gave each
of us a bag containing some equipment and asked us to empty the bag and she
then told us what to feel for ─ the first thing that we had to feel for was the
harness and then we were shown how to handle the harness. Other pieces of
equipment were a lead that is used when walking with the dog when not in
harness, in other words when it is not working. There were two collars, one of
the collars had two bells on it and is regarded as a play collar. The second
collar was for when the dog was working and finally a feeding whistle and
grooming kit. This was followed by a
discussion of the Guide Dog Agreement.
