Seeing Eye Dog Training
[Music]
you
once the dogs come back from the puppy
raising program we review over the
puppy’s history being with the families
we look over their medical history and
then we start to develop our rapport
with the dogs and start to do with their
training beginning with obedience
they return to the seeing eye to begin
four months of training with an
instructor first week with a new dog
here on campus they get the dog used to
working in harness they used to pulling
out pooling is essential for a guide
they need to be able to pull someone so
we can follow and really feel where the
dog is going so the instructors are
working with the dog here in a fairly
quiet and safe environment teaching them
to pull getting them used to the hardest
they review the obedience lessons that
the puppies learned with their families
and introduced a few more simple tasks
and then after that first week they’ll
take the dog into town and start on very
quiet simple routes each dog learns to
stop at places like curbs intersections
and stairs this is necessary to assure
safe travel we’re seeing what the dog
needs to work on we’re evaluating the
dog skills it’s just to see how they’re
doing with the rest of the dogs we’re
seeing if they’re stopping for curbs if
they’re moving around objects we’re
giving them a slight traffic checks now
ideally each trip or route will include
some sort of destination whether it’s a
pharmacy or the movie theater or a walk
through the park and any one of these
situations a lot to learn from the
training techniques use our instructors
today are largely unchanged from those
used by the seeing eyes founders
although adjustments are constantly made
in response to increasingly complex
traffic and intersections the basic
elements remain the same reward and
repetition when a dog performs correctly
the instructor immediately rewards it
with petting and praise
dogs are taught to recognize things that
can create a barrier for a blind
traveling partner even when they create
no barrier for the dog when a dog is
guiding it is responsible for the safety
of a team that is twice as wide and up
to three times taller than the animal by
itself this is why seeing-eye dogs are
taught to walk around low-hanging
branches and to give a wide clearance
around obstacles on sidewalks if they
both can’t fit the dog finds another way
throughout the four months of training
instructors continue to build on what
the dogs have learned and begin to
address the most important skill of all
intelligent disobedience typical example
would be your standing on a subway
platform the person gets disoriented for
whatever reason they’re facing the
drop-off they ask the dog to go forward
the dog refuses or the dog turns them
left or right away from the drop-off at
any street crossing it’s the blind
person’s job to listen to the traffic
and then tell the dog forward when the
crossing is clear
a single car turning in front of the
person might be too quiet to hear but
the dog will see it
in this case the dog will consciously
disobey the forward command relying on
its own judgment to protect the person
from danger I think it’s really
rewarding it’s an important stage to
begin beginning to know these dogs as
completely as possible from the
information we’ve been given and to see
what the strengths of this dog
are coming it right into the program and
what some of the weaknesses may be but
the fun is developing that dog from
scratch into a working guide developing
all those responsibilities
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