Vision - Guide Dog



The Eye Color Blindness Blindness Interviews > Guide Dog < First Year Back to School Out to Work Professionals Facts Raising Commitment Retirement Deaf and Blind Fun	Guide dog Guide dogs are assistance dogs trained to lead blind or visually impaired people around obstacles . And as you can read in this pdf obstacles file there are many obstacles outside on the street, which mean that blind and partially sighted people suffer inconvenience and risk injury. Guide dogs spend their early lives in foster homes where they are socialized through exposure to loving attention, and taught rudimentary skills through obedience training . Once potential guide dogs reach a certain age, they then begin their intense schooling as assistance animals while residing at a training school before being matched with compatible human partners. These matches are cemented through a 30-day training course, wherein the human half of the team learns to control the dog and interprets its signals. Very few visually impaired people go through this training, and these candidates must already have fully developed orientation and mobility skills before they do. Dogs are partially (red-green) color blind and so guide dogs cannot see colors the way people do, nor are able to interpret street signs . The human half of the guide dog team does the leading, based upon skills acquired through previous mobility training. The first guide dog training schools were established in Germany during the First World War, to enhance the mobility of returning veterans who were blinded in combat. The United States followed suit in 1929 with the Seeing Eye in Morristown, New Jersey. This school was followed, two years later, by the British Guide Dog Association. In several countries, guide dogs are exempted from regulations against the presence of animals in places such as restaurants and public transportation. Nowadays there are several guide dog organisations in many countries. At www.duxburysystems.com you can find a long list of many guide dog schools all over the world.
"The only thing worse than being blind is having sigth but no vision"

Guide dog