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  Date / Time: 10/4/2009 10:35 PM UTC

  Service Dogs by Alanna Parke Kvale
  

      Most of us take for granted the ability to stand without assistance, walk, answer the phone, answer the door, turn lights on and off, summon an elevator or retrieve dropped objects. For those with serious disabilities, these simple tasks can be huge problems. That’s where the Service Dog comes in. All over the world, dogs are being trained to help those that are disabled with these seemingly simple tasks.
      The most well known of these Service Dogs is the Seeing Eye Dog or Guide Dog. In the United States, Canada, Great Britain and most other countries, it is illegal to deny a blind person access to any public place because they have a Guide Dog. And this means any place, whether it’s a bank, restaurant, store, library, etc. The Americans with Disabilities Act makes this quite clear.
      The Guide Dog must be able to help his owner navigate sidewalks, stairs, cross streets safely, all while avoiding any obstacles that could endanger either of them. And he must be able to ignore any and all distractions while he is on the job.
      The most popular dogs for this type of work are German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers and Black Labradors, due to their intelligence, their friendly temperament and their size. While anyone can raise a puppy with this service in mind, children are usually preferred for puppy raising. 4-H programs around the country have coordinated with students to help in raising potential Seeing Eye Dogs. Those who wish to raise puppies for this program are encouraged to start with obedience training, stressing socialization and good manners.  Not all the dogs can go from the puppy raiser’s home to life in the kennel and formal training. For those that handle the transition, and are at least eighteen months old, the formal training can begin in earnest. This takes about four to six months, working with a sighted person. Then it’s time to place the dog with a blind person, but before they can take their Seeing Eye Dog home, they must go into training themselves and learn how the dog can help them and what their part in the relationship will be. They must live on site for several weeks for this important training.
      Other Service Dogs are used to help those who are deaf or who have other disabilities such as cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, autism, multiple sclerosis, spina bifida, arthritis, or Down’s syndrome. Having a dog who can do minor tasks such as pick up dropped items, open cupboard doors, flip light switches, fetch a cane or crutches, assist with stairs or elevators, or even answer a phone is a huge help to the person with disabilities.
  There are even Service Dogs trained to help Parkinson’s patients, when they freeze up and are unable to move, or “seizure response” dogs who help persons with epilepsy. No one is quite certain how the dogs know when their owner is about to experience a seizure, though the speculations are many. Is it by scent, or visual or electrical cues? Dr. Roger Reep, a physiological sciences professor at the University of Florida thinks that of all the theories, it is most plausible that some dogs can smell a seizure coming. Whatever it is, it is obvious that dogs are able to pick up on the subtle changes that humans fail to notice.
      The list of tasks a Service Dog can be trained to do is almost endless, thanks to their intelligence and willingness to help. Once again, it’s a warm heart and cold nose to the rescue of physically failing humans.
  
  
  
  • Tags:
  • Service Dogs
  • Guide Dogs
  • Therapy Dogs
  • seeing eye dogs
  • Roger Reep
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