Well, I'll bite.  Everyone I've ever met with a guide dog ever had two factors in common.  They made my cane skills look worthless and they also said it was the best decision of their lives.  I've had dogs forever, and it was just the natural next step.
I make my cane skills look worthless, now, and it was, in fact, the best decision of my life (so far, but I haven't suddenly become rich overnight yet).
Of course the people who tried but didn't get guide dogs don't fit in my little category; for some people it isn't the right thing.  But only you can decide that, and, often, you don't know until you go to training.  If you get as far as training, it is probably right for you, but even then it's not too late to back out--the schools prefer you to do so if you decide it's wrong, or at least mine did.  I almost came home without my dog, in fact; for the first 6 months or so, it's a lot of work as the dog adjusts to you and you adjust to the dog, and I didn't realize that before I went to the training.  I'm very, very glad I didn't back out, of course.

well, i'm kind of disappointed for the lack of response of my  question in post 51, but oh well.  i tried to get my younger brother to read this topic as he is at leader dog this week at a camp for youth learning about guide dogs.  i don't think he actually read the whole thing.  but a little bit is good i guess.  so if anyone still wants to respond to my question it would be greatly appreciated.  i would really like to know why you got your guide dog?  what were your driving motives? was it all you had anticipated or less, or more?

Ouch, I've been away from this topic for a while.

@kile, for me like Camlorn, getting a guide dog was inevitable. I've grown up with dogs, my mum and gran both had guide dogs, so I had a clear understanding of what sorts of things the dog could do, and what sort of improvements it had over my cane skills despite the fact that I'd been using a cane for 17 years and considder myself pretty good as far as it goes, for comparisons, see my previous posts.

I think however the biggest reason in terms of mobility comparison for me, is that walking with reever is just so much easier. Even aside from all the objects from bus stops to empty seats and post boxes she can now recognize and find on command, it is just far less trouble. When walking with a cane, it's necessary to be aware of so much, to be conscious of distance travels, what obstacles are around, where people are moving, air currents, street flow, smells, residual visual information etc. A dog just catagorically removes the need to maintain that level of concentration, indeed it's possible to pretty much think about something else with a dog and let the dog do the work since the amount of attention required to walk with a dog is far less.

This is why I'm not in the "my dog changed my life" camp, but rather my dog just made life  heck of a lot easier, though of course like anything else it takes work both on your part and the dog's, and generally the more you put in spending time with your dog, teaching your dog different objects etc, the better your experience.

As has been said I do agree it's not for everyone, I know a chap who recently began training but decided it wasn't for him which is of course fair enough, but it's something I'd recommend at least trying since if you can get it to work it works exceptionally, particularly if your willing to put the time in.

Btw, I'll also admit the first few months are! hard, not because of the training, but simply because of both you and the dog getting used to each other, and I know there were points when I myself, despite having experience with dogs was thinking "why the hell did I do this!" but I'm glad I did stick with it.

@Camlorn, I believe you have slightly over emphasized my humanistic account of Dog psychology. I fully agree a dog isn't a human and the ways dogs respond are not human, however I was emphasizing the emotional aspects and similarities simply because your previous account seemed overly mechanistic to me. unfortunately, all the best accounts I've seen of Dog psychology have been lectures or talks by trainers rather than actual written material since usually the people who seem to know most about Dogs are the people who spend considderable time with them.

As regards the alpha games, it's not however just a matter of aggression, since a key part in the alpha roll if you like is also protection and comfort, meaning that other dogs feel safe when around the alpha. For example, I know myself Reever very much changed her attitude to me when I encouraged her to curl up on my feet on the setttee, which was a good bit more than just the comfort factor I think since there were actually more comfortable places elsewhere, rather it was physical closeness provoking emotional closeness, which again is something of a pack leader game albeit a rather less aggressive one.

I wouldn't describe aggression as part of the alpha game, but it is necessary to let a dog know when they're doing something wrong, and while I certainly don't yell at reever or anything like that, occasionally it is necessary to use a fairnly firm tone, particularly with some dogs when for instance I want reever to walk past another dog on the street, ---- though usually she'll do it anyway with thout the need for me to change my tone of voice, and once I do tell her "no!" fairly firmly she'll very quickly go back to what she was supposed to do.

I wouldn't describe this in purely pavlovian terms, particularly since a different dog would require a different approach, but it is a necessary part of communicating your intentions to your dog.

I'm still not certain of the two year old analogy, just because I myself am infinitely comfortable with dogss, even quite young puppies, but find children far harder to deal with since it seems where dogs are fairly understandable in their emotional reactions and don't get themselves into half as much trouble, young children don't have the perceptions necessary to understand that a person has intentions towards them and so will just behave relatively instinctively, indeed children under four I know tend to not believe that others have! desires different from themselves, where as dogs clearly can understand desires and intentions of others once you communicate as much to them, ---- one reason why it's not necessary to always give food as a reward and once your established as having a bond with a dog simply letting the dog know your pleased with them will do.

Then again this is probably a point of experience and distinction rather than actual psychology, since to you obviously a two year old is an adequate analogy for a dog's behaviour, where as to me it isn't.

Well, Dark, perhaps I am reading too much into it, and both viewpoints are adequately represented at this point, so...yeah.
As for the two year old analogy, it's the best I've found.  I don't have one more accurate for someone who has not yet had a guide dog.  If someone wishes to offer me a better one, I'm definitely open to suggestions, but for quickly explaining what it can be like that's all I've got.  To actually find the differences requires having a guide dog.  Perhaps I would find it less accurate if I had children of my own, but I'd probably still use it for lack of something else to put in its place.
I am firmly in the life-changing camp.  I knew what they could do, to an extent, but did not realize just how much faster and easier it would be.  The first few months are indeed hard, but that passes quickly enough.  They can definitely help with the distracted problem; the dog will know where to turn so you don't have to.
I'm getting my second in two weeks or so, actually.

The lack of tactile feedback is in fact unique.  You'll still use a cane sometimes, however.  In fact, they recommend keeping a cane with you, just in case.  You can get one of the NFB telescoping ones which is even more portable than the folding canes, and that fixes that problem.  Things like edges of platforms will indeed be fixed for the most part by your guide dog.  They'll also avoid low-hanging stuff: branches, stupid big metal supports perfectly at the height of my forehead (I know about them because I had an occasion to use my cane), and the like.
And let's not forget that they can avoid unintentional tactile contact with people.  Can your cane avoid unintentional tactile contact with people?

I hate those telescoping canes with a passion. And yes I've used them enough to be able to reasonably say that. It always collapsed on me at the worst possible time. So I stuck with a folding cane and, for as long as I remain a cane user that's all I will use. So needless to say the NFB and I would definitely not get along. As for overthinking Dark you might be right about that. It's something I've tried to work on over the years but without much success. It also didn't help that I have a bit of a long stride (longer legs will do that I suppose) and tended to over walk the instructor during what in the US we refer to as the Juno Walk. She got a bit snippy with me about that as I recall, just like she also got on me for stumbling with 30 to 40-mile-an-hour winds directly at my back. It may be a perfectly understandable response but apparently it scares the dogs. So far though I've never met a guide dog user who confirmed that. In fact many of te ones I talked to were fairly incredulous when I mentioned it.

I've talked to a lot of instructors from that particular school and they seemed to share that view. Neeldess to say if/when I apply for a dog again it'll be at one of the other schools.

Probably because she'd put forth money to fly from either California or Oregon to Idaho and she wanted th business over and done with. That and as she might have put it, "you'll have to take your dog out in really bad weather sometimes so might as well get used to it." Ok, so I might let my dog out to park in that kind of weather but we'd stay out only long enough to do his or her business. There'd be no walking LOL.

I'm just saying that unless there was an absolute necessity I wouldn't go out in really harsh weather, either too hot or to cold, precisely because I would not want to endanger my dog's health. I mean if the dog had to use the facilities that would of course be a given. But I agree that my instructor was probably being unnecessarily critical, particularly in view of the fact that a year or two earlier they'd accepted a irl who, though blind since birth, acted as though she had no idea either where she was going or ow to use the cane and wouldn't even use sighted guide to avoid getting lost. Then she had the nerve to harp on me for going sighted guide with a mutual friend during a mall visit. At least I did something! to keep from getting lost.

I've considered it. But at the same time there's also the problem of how to deal with the people who come up and, without bothering to ask permission first, just start petting your dog, then get bent out of shape when you politely remind them that petting the dog in harness, particularly without asking permission first, is disrespectful and can actually be dangerous.

I guess people in the US are less observant, because I've rarely heard that the sign or even the harness itself was necessarily always that effective at detering would-be petters. There was a huge debate abot that on Zone BBS about just this subect. It had to do with whether a guide dog user was being too harsh when, during a bus ride, she gently removed the hand of a small child from her dog. This made te child cry which apparently upset the mother a bit. The solution that a few members seemed to come up with was that we need to make a switch from using dogs as guides to using robots.

I agree with you. But apparently that's too much work for a lot of these people. Nor do they seem to realize that robots would be no more proof against problems than would dogs. Even if software crashes in robots are rarer than computers (which I'm not sure I believe), the still ave hardware failures on a fairly regular basis from all I've been able to find out.