Each year, guide dog schools—independent nonprofit organizations that provide guide dogs for blind and visually impaired individuals—breed close to 3,000 dogs. The regular career span of a guide dog is 7-10 years. This is because making sure they guide a person safely is much more than knowing where to go. Guide dogs go through extensive training. A guide dog is like the eyes, and sight of a blind person.Guide dogs are used to help blind people become more independent. This enables the dog to poop in a bag which the handler can then remove, tie up and dispose of. The answer lies in the nature of the work guide dogs are required to do. Guide Dog Trainers work with the dogs for around 19 weeks, helping them develop basic guiding skills, for example, dealing with kerbs and avoiding obstacles. Life for a Working Guide Dog. Guide dogs get to go everywhere and do everything their partners do and they are showered with attention. Guide dogs retire. In this article, you will learn more about guide dogs for the blind in terms of their essential characteristics, how they are taught to help the handler and what they cannot do. I know a man who owns a guide dog, and he says that while the dog is wearing the harness, it knows that it is on duty. While the dogs are at the training school they generally live with one of the volunteer boarders, people who look after trainee guide dogs, guide dogs and former guide dogs in their own homes. After that time the dog is generally adopted by a new family to live out its golden years and is replaced by a younger dog. There is a lot of training a guide dog will do before they are taught familiar places. What exactly is a guide dog trained to do? From work and school, to shopping malls, restaurants, and hiking trails, guide dogs lead very active lives. In short, guide dogs are taught how to find and follow a clear path, maneuver around obstacles, and stop at curbs. This also gives them a good idea of where any poop might land so they can clean it up. It takes between 2 and 5 years for a guide dog to be ready to be matched with a … Essential core traits of guide dogs I didn't know that personality issues could actually keep a dog from becoming a guide dog! The handler can figure out what the dog is up to by feeling the dogs back. No, not of their human companions. Guide dog pups try their first solid food between weeks three and four - and mealtimes become a messy affair. What dog wouldn't envy the life of a guide dog? Guide dogs help blind people in many ways, beginning with giving unsighted people independence. Many blind people can’t get around without the help of a well-trained guide dog. @cloudel – Yes, they do live with their dogs, and yes, they do show them affection. When so many intelligent, loving shelter dogs are in need of homes, why don’t guide dog schools rescue dogs like some of the other service-dog programs? 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