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Four-footed helpers

Guide dogs-in-training meet kids who may own them

By Greg Botonis, Staff Writer

10 1/2-month-old Ginger, left, and 11-month-old Bonnet, both black labs, will grow up to be guide dogs for the visually impaired. (Jeff Goldwater / LA Daily News)

LANCASTER - For most volunteers, the experience of raising and training a guide dog is bittersweet.

The animal goes everywhere with the volunteer - from the mall and restaurants to lying next to the shower or beside the bed.

They become friends as the volunteer provides leash training and teaches the dog the basics, including house training and socializing with people and other dogs.

After about a year and a half, the dog that has become a constant part of the volunteer's life is sent to work with a trainer and then teamed up with its visually impaired master.

"You go through all the crying and the other emotional stuff, the withdrawals, when your dog gets recalled," said Kay Brickner of the Antelope Valley Guide Dog Club. "But you get to go to the graduation and see the end product. Now your labor of love will give someone else happiness. It's very rewarding."

On Saturday, the club hosted an event to socialize puppies being trained as guide dogs with seven youngsters from the Foundation for the Junior Blind at a home in Lancaster.

More than four dozen puppy raisers from around California attended to socialize their canines with the youngsters who may be paired with a dog someday.

Nearly every guide dog starts off being raised in the home of a volunteer who trains the animal in the basics, including eating at regularly scheduled times and walking on a short leash to prevent it from running ahead.

After about 18 months, the animal is sent to be trained as a guide dog for five months by licensed trainers from Guide Dogs for the Blind. The following month, trainers partner a visually impaired person with a dog and train them to work together.

The process of pairing the team begins long before the training. The foundation tries to determine a person's activity level and match him or her to a dog with the proper temperament and activity level.

The animal is trained to walk its new master from place to place in a straight path while trying to avoid obstacles. The dogs are trained to maneuver their charges around potholes and other dangers as well as avoid low-hanging branches and other overhead dangers.

Because dogs can't read street signs and are not trained to obey traffic signals, a dog's master must listen for the flow of traffic and then give the dog a command to walk when it seems safe. But dogs are trained to disregard that command if a vehicle is approaching or other dangers are present.

Because of the decreased mobility many visually impaired or blind people experience, the guide dogs give them some confidence they don't get from walking with a cane.

"When I used my cane, I would run into things, then have to figure out what it is and how to get around it," said Jim Logan, who was recently paired with his dog Atticus, a yellow Labrador, after his vision deteriorated enough to require the pairing.

"Atticus guides me around those obstacles to begin with. I used to run into people at the airport when there were crowds, but Atticus takes me right through them with no problem."

The animals selected for guide dog service are usually German shepherds, golden retrievers and Labradors or mixes of those dogs. More recently, poodles have been trained as guides because they are hypoallergenic and smaller for people who don't have room for a larger dog.