By Linda Bartram
This is my third post about guide dogs as we wrap up Guide Dog Awareness Month. In my second post, I described some of the benefits and experiences of myself and four other guide dog users. In this post, I will focus on some of the challenges we have and continue to face, and how the public can help ensure that guide dog teams have a safe and problem-free travel experience.
We all agreed that one of the most frequent problems we face is our guide being distracted--both by other dogs and by other people. Loose dogs can be particularly problematic. Even if the unleashed dog is friendly (and we don’t really have any way of knowing this), our guides can lose their focus; dancing around to avoid or visit with the offender. If the loose dog is aggressive, then our dog is at a definite safety disadvantage as they cannot easily defend themselves or run away. Dog attacks are a particular concern for Louise and she related an incident where the owner of a loose dog actually thought the situation was funny. What the public may not realize is that a dog attack, even when the guide is not seriously injured, may render it unable to work, causing it to be retired prematurely. And it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace that dog with the potential immobilization of the blind person for months while they wait for a new guide.
So please keep your dog on a leash, under control and don’t allow your dog to come near a guide dog when it is working. You may want your leashed dog to meet the dog guide, but its not social time for the guide so resist the temptation. I have a neighbour who used to cross over to the other side of the road when she saw me coming down the sidewalk. This way there was no chance that her dog became a distraction. I could hear her talking to her dog, telling it, “That’s a working dog and it's helping its Mommy so be good.”
I wrote about human distractions in my first post, but will reiterate that any interaction between you and the guide dog may cause a distraction. The best thing is to pretend that the dog just doesn’t exist--no contact (even eye contact).
Speak to the guide dog owner only. Ask them if they need help and respect their answer. If they say no, don’t grab the dog's harness/handle, unless it’s a “matter of life or death”. Cathy shared an incident where a member of the public grabbed her dog’s harness when she was crossing the street. Her guide was so upset by this interference, it subsequently refused to cross at that location.
When giving directions to a guide dog owner (or any blind person for that matter), don’t just say “It's over there”. You may be pointing to the chair or entrance but that’s of little help to either the person who is blind or the guide dog. Give specific directions such as ,“The chair is on your left about ten feet away”.
Another major challenge which all of us had experienced, is being denied service. This occasionally occurs when it comes to bringing the guide into eating establishments, and often when accessing taxis, Uber and other such transportation services available to the general public. This topic warrants a blog post of its own, but what I will say for now is that all service providers need to inform themselves of the guide dog legislation in their jurisdiction which will no doubt state that it is an offense to deny service to a guide dog owner except in very limited circumstances.
The third challenge that was raised by Cathy and Rita, was the high vet bills if your guide dog gets sick. Some guide dog schools will help with these charges but others do not. And even those that do assist, they often only provide reimbursement so the guide dog owner still has to come up with the initial cash. Vet bills are a medical tax deduction, but as most blind persons (75%) are unemployed, this doesn’t help. Some veterinarians offer reduced rates or even waive some fees, but this is not consistent. So blind persons continue to not only deal with the emotional strain experienced by all those who love the animals in their lives, they are more likely to have a financial burden when their guide gets hurt or sick.
The last observation we shared is the tendency for the public to make presumptions about the abilities of our dog guides and of us as blind persons. Guide dogs cannot read street signs or traffic signals. We need to know where we are and where we want to go. Our guide will give it their best shot if we are not sure, but they perform best when given clear direction from their owner.
I’ll conclude with an experience shared by Lisa twice during her short partnership with her first dog. As she approached a set of stairs at the Sky Train station in Vancouver, she was peppered with questions like, “Don’t you want to use the escalator or elevator?” When she said no and proceeded with her guide leading her towards the stairs, she could sense that everyone stopped to watch with their mouths open in surprise/fear. She wants everyone to know that just because our eyes don’t work well, doesn’t mean that we can’t walk down stairs safely. Our guides are trained to stop at the top of stairs, alerting us to their presence, and once we are aware and oriented, they will guide us down safely.
Featured Image Alt Text: a young women petting a black dog.