001. Dogs for the Blind
Description
This article is from the Service Dogs FAQ, posted to rec.pets.dogs newsgroup. Maintained by Cindy Tittle Moore with numerous contributions by others.
001. Dogs for the Blind
My thanks to Rusty Wright for the information on Guide Dogs. Thanks also to Carla Campbell, who contributed substantial additional information.
Dogs can be trained to guide blind people so that they are able to negotiate the world otherwise unassisted. They serve as, quite literally, the eyes for their owner. It is illegal anywhere in the US, or Canada, or Britain, and most other countries, to deny a blind person guided by a dog access to any public place. This includes stores, restaurants, banks, and anywhere else that dogs might be otherwise prohibited. The Americans with Disabilities Act in the US is quite clear on this point. The training for such dogs is quite demanding, as the dog must be able to navigate sidewalks, streets, stairs -- avoiding all obstacles, including overhead ones that may injure its owner (but not itself). They must be able to ignore all distractions while doing their work.
Most commonly referred to as "Seeing Eye Dogs" or "Guide Dogs," there are in reality many organizations in the US that provide guide dogs for blind people. However, while Guide Dogs for the Blind is on the west coast (along with Guide Dogs of the Desert and Guide Dogs of America, both in southern California, and Eye Dog Foundation in Arizona) and The Seeing Eye (among many others) is on the east, nearly all 15 schools in the United States serve people nationwide. In fact, people can obtain a dog from any of the schools, save five (which serve only their own geographical regions), and many dogs from The Seeing Eye, Leader Dogs, Guiding Eyes and the other schools work on the west coast, while many dogs from Guide Dogs for the Blind work all around the country. Geographical location is only one factor in selecting a guide dog training school to attend, and rarely is it the most important.
This is not the case in all countries with multiple guide dog training facilities. In the U.K., for example, the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (GDBA) operates several regional centers, and sends its applicants to the center nearest their home for training. All these regional centers are "branches" or "campuses" of the GDBA, unlike the diverse American dog guide schools, which are completely independent from one another. Unlike American schools, the GDBA's regional training centers are centrally controlled, operating under the same set of policies, drawing from the same budget and using the same training methods. In the United States and Canada, only Guide Dogs for the Blind has any "branches" or presence outside their central facility. Guide Dogs for the Blind is the first US guide dog training program to operate two facilities under the same administration, with its new campus in Boring, Oregon (the first class graduated September 1995).
The breeds used are yellow and black Labrador Retrievers and German Shepherd Dogs, usually. Others can be used, such as Golden Retrievers, but usually the centers prefer to use dogs with a high recognition potential and some breeds simply seem to be better at being trained for guide service.
The breeds most commonly used as dog guides are Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers and German Shepherd Dogs. Approximately 60-70% of all working guides in the U.S. are Labradors. (Yellow, black and chocolate labs are all used, though most Labradors used as guide dogs are yellow or black labs and some schools specifically do not use chocolates.) Other breeds, such as Boxers, Flat and Curly Coated Retrievers, Border Collies, Huskies, Doberman Pinchers, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Australian Shepherds, German Short-Haired Pointers, Dalmatians, and even Standard Poodles are occasionally used by some programs. Flat-coated Retrievers, in particular, appear to be gaining popularity with guide dog training establishments. Crosses of many of these breeds are also used, by some schools, with Lab-Golden, Lab-GSD and GSD-Huskie crosses most common. (In Britain and Australia, Labrador/Golden and Labrador-Poodle crosses ("Labradoodles") are frequently used as guides, and far more crosses are used, in general, than by the U.S. schools.)
Some centers have their own breeding programs, such as Guide Dogs; others use local breeders. The trend does seem to be toward proprietary breeding programs, although many of the stock, if not used as guide dogs will also compete in the more usual kennel club events. For example, CH Lobuff's Bare Necessities (black Labrador Retriever) was bred by the Guide Dog Foundation for the blind and is producing puppies for both the ring and the foundation.
Labs, Goldens and Shepherds are most popular as guides due to their temperament, intelligence, versatility, size and availability. Dogs trained as guide dogs must be intelligent, willing workers, large enough to comfortably guide in harness and small enough to be easily controlled and fit comfortably under restaurant tables and on buses and other forms of public transit. The three common breeds used for this work were selected because a large number of individuals of these breeds met the requirements necessary for a good guide dog and these breeds could most easily be matched with the widest range of blind people and their needs in a guide. Additionally, these three breeds are popular in the United States and obtaining them for training or supplementing breeding stock has proved easier than obtaining less common, but perhaps equally suitable breeds.
Families who raise the puppies simply train them in basic dog obedience, and stress lots of socialization and good manners. For example, if you go to a dog show, you are likely to see several such puppies there, learning to take it all in stride. The dogs go back for their formal training when they're about 1.5 years old, although they can go back as young as 1 year old.
Children are usually preferred as puppy raisers, hence many coordinate with 4-H programs. Interestingly enough, the puppies raised by kids are more likely to make it through the formal guide dog training. The difference is not drastic, but is "significant." Volunteer puppy raisers are encouraged to expose their charges to as many new experiences as possible, observing the pups' reactions and providing positive reassurance and security for the puppies as they experience crowds, cars, strange buildings, other animals and much more. They also teach the dogs some of the basic obedience commands such as "sit" and "down," but the dogs' instructors will insure that the dogs know these and other obedience commands in addition to instructing them in guide work, itself.
When dogs go back for their training they're carefully screened for any hip abnormalities and other health problems. If the hips aren't very good they're immediately "retired." The formal training takes about 6 months.
Dogs can fail for a variety of reasons. As you might guess, some dogs don't transition well from living in a puppy raiser's home to living in the kennels and others just get stressed out and fail. The puppy raiser gets the option of keeping a dog that failed. If the puppy raiser can't keep the dog they can place it in a home. Waiting lists for such dogs are usually several years long!
Before a guide dog is given to a blind person the blind person must usually attend training at center. This training is several weeks long and during this time the blind person will live on site. People coming back to get a replacement dog usually take a "refresher" class.
A few smaller programs conduct "in home" training, in which an instructor brings a trained dog to the student and trains the team in their own home area. This is the most rapidly growing area of dog guide training, with three new home training programs started since 1990. Most of these programs are small 1-2 trainer operations and do not ever plan to serve as many people as the residential programs can. All home training programs currently limit their service to their own region of the country, serving only those applicants in their own and neighboring states.
There are pros and cons to both types of training, and they serve people with different needs and expectations. The majority of guide dog handlers still choose to attend class at a residential training facility to receive and train with their dogs.
There are, in addition to residential training schools and home training programs, a few private trainers of dog guides and a few blind people who train their own guides.
There are 15 established programs in the US which train dog guides for the blind (as well as several in Canada and in other countries around the world, of course.) Of these, Fidelco, Southeastern, two new schools in New York state, (Upstate Guide Dog association and Freedom Guide Dogs), and a very recently established program in Oregon (Northwest Guiding Eyes) serve only people from their own "region." The rest serve anyone from the United States or abroad.
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