Guide Dogs for the Blind make routine deliveries of puppies in the affectionately titled “puppy truck,” a temperature controlled van that chauffeurs would-be service dogs from its satellite campus in San Rafael to homes across the country and into Canada for their early training and Socialization. The puppies arrive at their “first” home all cute and cuddly ready to learn and explore their new surroundings and then get right down to the business of learning. The program currently has more than 800 puppies out in the field and more than 2,000 dogs have been associated with the program. Nationally, the program has a 63 percent success rate for dogs to complete graduate and become certified service dogs. Guide Dog for the Blind provides their dogs to Blind individuals free of charge in order to assist them in their day to day lives.
Puppies are expected to undergo strict training from the volunteer puppy raiser with regular check ins with Guide Dogs for the Blind and their local puppy raiser club. Among the special rules for Puppy Raiser they know their puppies are not allowed to play catch with tennis balls so they do not develop a ball obsession. They are also not allowed to eat out of hands or pick things up from the ground. They must learn and obey the drop is command early on so that they know this behavior is not allowed. The way it works is that every day you train them, teach them new commands and work on old ones commands, teach them how to walk right next to you and expose them to different sounds, smells and different situations through fun socialization exercises. The Puppy Raisers are given a list of “tasks” the puppies must perform, what it should look like, and what the verbal command for that task should be so that no matter the dog if it is the Blind person’s first or 5th the commands are all the same and mean the same thing. It also helps ensure that as the puppies continue on in the program and learn more complicated tasks that they have a solid consistent foundation to work from.
If you would be interested in becoming a Puppy Raising family you can get more information http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer?pagename=help_volunteer_puppy
Would like to train dogs to be service dogs. One of these days I will take the time for it.
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