Welcome and Editor's note Dear DGHA members, associates, and all who are involved or interested in dog guide mobility. DGHA has had quite a hiatus since our last newsletter, however, we warmly welcome you to the Autumn Edition of DGHA News for 2019. Our committee is excited about plans to produce a seasonal newsletter, upcoming teleconferences and a new way to keep our dog guide handler community connected with each other. Read on for more details! Annette Ferguson, Editor. Table of contents: Article 1 - Launch of New DGHA Logo . Article 2 - Email list for Dog Guide discussion Article 3 - Teleconference with Zoren the Vet (and other upcoming teleconferences) . Article 4 - Dog's aboard! Cruising with a guide dog. Article 5 - DGHA Ultimate independence presentation at recent BCA conference. Article 6 - Last words . +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Article 1 - Launch of New DGHA Logo . You may have heard we have a new logo in the pipelines. You may have even voted for your favourite version. It’s now official that of the three logos put to the vote, logo no 2 was the winner! An image of the winning logo is attached and here is the description of the logo: A black map of Australia is the background, very simplified with nice smooth curves. The words ‘Dog Guide Handlers Australia’ is in white text between mid-north Queensland and mid NSW. The top ¾ of Western Australia, all of NT and SA contain a simplified outline of a white dog wearing a black harness with a white handle and the legs and torso of handler in the same bright sky blue of the previous logo. The dog is behind the handler facing the East Coast and DGHA words. It is a very simplified logo, there are no details like hands or eyes, just representative shapes. Thank you to all who voted, we’ll be sharing this logo on social media and updating our website in conjunction with the delivery of this newsletter. Article 2 - Email list for Dog Guide discussion. Although many of our members are avid Facebook users, we are aware that some feel disconnected from our community because they don’t use Facebook. Jordie Howel has kindly offered the use of her already existing email list which we encourage our members to join. We ask that you keep the discussion to topics related to dog guide use. The instructions to join this list are: Send an email to guide-dog-l-request@freelists.org with subscribe guide-dog-l in the subject line. You will then need to reply to the confirmation email. Article 3 - Teleconference with Zoren the Vet. Our next teleconference will be held on Wednesday the 31st of July in the evening, the time will be confirmed closer to the date and joining instructions will be advised via the membership email list. Zoren will be sharing information on commonly seen dog health issues we should look out for and when you should seek vet assistance. He’ll also be answering questions from teleconference attendees. He will not be able to advise specifically on a particular dog’s health via teleconference without a consultation, however he’ll be able to explain the how’s and why’s of dog health related topics. All members are invited to join free of charge. If you are unable to attend, please email your questions to us and we’ll put them forward. Keep an eye out for upcoming teleconferences on NDIS and dog guides, and dealing with discrimination and the anti discrimination board. Article 4 - Dog's aboard! Cruising with a dog guide. In February this year three of our committee members, Cathy Egan, Penny Stevenson and Annette Ferguson boarded the Carnival Spirit and enjoyed 4 lovely nights at sea. Penny and Annette took their guide dogs, Poppy and Leo and all three reported that the cruising experience with a dog guide was a lot of fun and are looking forward to another cruise in the future. The cruise destination was Phillip Island in Victoria where they all disembarked for a day at the beach. Leo and Poppy had an absolute blast frolicking in the waves and the sand. They’ve provided some tips for successfully cruising with a dog guide: 1. Prepare well ahead of time, at least 2 months. The biosecurity laws for cruising within Australia with an assistance animal have recently been updated and it is now possible to board a ship with a dog guide without too much drama Here is a link to the 9 step process you’ll need to follow to get your dog guide onto a ship sailing within Australian waters. http://www.agriculture.gov.au/cats-dogs/assistance-dogs/travelling-cruise-vessel 2. Your cruise company should provide an area for your dog to toilet. Most companies provide a box with wood chip or similar. We were not entirely happy with what was provided so brought our own wood chip from Bunnings which we had to deliver ourselves to the ship before boarding. You may like to take artificial grass or your own wood chip, but speak to your cruise company and see what is available. We also found that using a toileting harness was useful as one of our dogs was not comfortable using the provided area for his number twos. 3. Smile, and ask for help. Cruise staff are employed to help passengers enjoy their time on board. We often asked for meals and drinks to be delivered to our table rather than us use the buffet or carry drinks ourselves with a dog in one hand and a bag or towel in the other. Staff were more than happy to help us out. We made sure we mentioned particularly helpful staff in the post cruise survey so that they receive benefits from our feedback, they really deserved great feedback. 4. Communicate clearly with your cruise company about your needs. We sent a letter from our dogs to Carnival Guest Services and asked if it could be printed in their newsletter. They very kindly printed a copy of the letter and placed one in every cabin. They also mentioned dog guide etiquette at ‘muster’, a time when you first board where all passengers go to a specific area for a brief on ship safety and what to do in an emergency. This was great as they had everyone’s full attention at that point and they really got the message across. This meant that every person on board, including staff, had the heads up about our dogs and the required etiquette. We were so thrilled with this, it meant that we were not badgered with questions and received the utmost respect from all passengers. Here is a copy of what ‘our dogs’ wrote in their letter: Hello, our names are Poppy aged 4 and Leo aged 3. We are cruising with our handlers Penny and Annette. As much as we'd love to play with you and get all the pats you have to give, we are here to do an important job. We both wear a harness which means we are working and cannot accept pats, conversations, food or any other type of distractions. Our job is to guide Penny and Annette safely around obstacles, show them where steps, doors and seats are and many other clever things we are trained to do to help our handlers who both have a vision impairment. Even if we are lying down snoozing by the pool in our harnesses, we'd appreciate you not patting us as we are still working and ready to go when Penny and Annette need us. Our friends at Carnival have given us a special place to do our business on the ship, well out of everyone’s way, just in case you were wondering. And don’t worry, we get to have fun on this cruise too, we get playtime with each other where we can just be dogs! That’s how we can stay so well behaved the rest of the time. End. Article 5 - DGHA Ultimate independence presentation at recent BCA conference. At the recent Blind Citizens Australia conference in Hobart several of our committee and members presented a session entitled ‘Ultimate Independence: combining innovative technology with your cane or guide dog’. President Kevin Murfitt along with committee member Penny Stevenson and member Katie Butler joined John-Ross Baressi from Guide Dogs Victoria to deliver this well received session. John-Ross presented a talk on the Blind Square Beacon Technology Project which aims to develop effective wayfinding information indoors and outside for people who are blind or have low vision. A great compliment to this presentation was Katie’s session on using Aira technology (remote assistance via a smartphone which helps interpret and navigate the environment for blind and low vision people). Katie demonstrated how this amazing technology would be used in an unfamiliar environment. Penny, with her years of work as an orientation and mobility instructor then shared her perspective on when different technology could be used with a dog guide or cane. This presentation and the BCA conference in general have been given a huge thumbs up from many of the conference attendees. Congratulations to all and thank you for your hard work in putting together and presenting this session. Article 6 - Last words . Join Dog Guide Handlers Australia (DGHA). If you are not already a member of DGHA and would like to be, please visit our website and fill in the accessible form. We welcome full memberships for dog guide handlers and associate memberships from dog guide trainers, puppy raisers and friends and family of dog guide handlers. The joining page on our website is here: http://dgha.org.au/dgha/membership/ Sign up for this newsletter. If you know someone who might like to receive this newsletter, for example a new dog guide handler, a puppy raiser or your instructor, please send their email address to us (with their permission) by reply email and we’ll add them to our list. Contribute to this newsletter We also welcome your input into this newsletter. If you have a story, an idea, a review of a doggy product you love, please contact Annette via the dgha@dgha.org.au email address to discuss your contribution.