October 22, 2013 • 39 mins
You know how when you see a guide dog leading a blind person to their destination and you think, "There goes a truly great dog?" It turns out you are absolutely correct. Guide dogs are about as special as dogs can get and it's through years of hard work. Learn about the ins and outs of guide dogs in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the all new team Toyota Corolla.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast on Josh,
there's Chuck and we hope we sound correct. Yes, yeah,
(00:20):
what does that mean? Well, Jerry was looking at her
putting the headphones up to her years, so like, she's
not you paying attention to here. Basically, what you're saying
is we have no quality control gong on it right now. Well,
no we did, because Jerry had the headphones up to
her years. Yeah, now we don't. She checks in. Occasionally
she wakes up and says, yeah, yeah, yeah, what so Chuck, Yes,
(00:45):
how's it going. It's going great. How are you? I'm
doing good? Good? Um? Huh do you look well? Thank
you very much? Healthy, fit, well, happy, sun kissed, sun kissed. Yeah,
it's really good, um, Chuck. Have you ever seen a
guide dog a guy dog? Guide? Oh? Yeah yeah, guide
(01:09):
dogs them all the time. Do you know why they
are also called seeing eye dogs are used to be
uh well, because guide dogs specifically, unlike the general term
service dogs, are to help guide around people who cannot see.
That is a pretty nice story, but it's not entirely
correct feeling. Seeing Eye dogs were actually UM part of
(01:31):
a company called the Seeing Eye was the first American
guide dog training company. UH. And it wasn't the Americans
who came up with training guide dogs. It was actually
the Germans UH. In Potstam, Germany, the first UM guide
dog training Academy was set up to help veterans that
(01:52):
have been blinded in World War One. UM and it
was successful. It didn't really take off. UM. But a woman,
an American woman living in Switzerland. Her name was Dorothy
Harris Eustace. She was very wealthy American, heard about this
when visited the school and said, this is pretty awesome.
Came back, waited a few years before she got around
(02:12):
to writing an article and it was published in the
Saturday Evening Post. And a young uh blind whipper snapper
named UM Norman Rockwell, No, his name was Morris Frank.
He heard about it and he got in touch with
Mrs Eustace and said, I would like one of these dogs.
Can you help me out? He said? She said, not
(02:34):
only will I help you out, I'm gonna fly you
to pot Stamp to Switzerland. Actually you're going to be
trained with a dog and we give you ten thousand
dollars to go start the first school in America. So
Morris Frank took the took her up on it, took
the ten thousand dollars and started in Tennessee the Seeing
Eye Dog School. So are you saying that Seeing Eye
(02:56):
dogs are the Kleenex of the working service dog world.
That's very apt. It's actually a brand name. Interesting. I
never knew that to see. He asked how I like this,
and I said, nothing really surprised me. It was a
good article, but I wasn't surprised. And here you go,
surprising me right off the bat. Thanks. All right, guy dogs,
let's get to it. Eight. Yeah, it's a pretty straightforward stuff,
(03:18):
but it's neat to know the details of things. Like
first of all, if you ever see a guy dog,
it's actually working and you should leave it alone. Yeah,
that's um in my house. It's difficult with Emily. Yeah,
you're really not supposed to do that. I know, and
she doesn't. But dude, she's like a five year old
(03:39):
like she will. I have seen her fake like she's
going to look for something and just brush up her
hand against the dog's head, like in a store, like
let me go look at the cereal and she'll just
brush up and be like that didn't mean to bet
your your guide dogs. She's like a frauder. She's like
a frauderist for guy dogs. Yeah, basically is that people
(03:59):
who rub up against yourself in public? Yeah, yeah, she
can't help it, dude, when she sees a dog, she's
like she just cannot not touch. So and it's understandable,
especially with guide dogs. Why Emily would do that because
it's like dogs and then five echelons up guide dogs, right,
Not only are they dogs, which are great animals to
(04:21):
begin with, but they're dogs that actually help not only
just regular people, but people who can't see. So it's
like you just want to pet them and be like
it's the greatest thing on the planet, and they look sad,
which makes you want to pet him even more. But
people they are not sad. They are working and they're
delighted to be working. Because if they're not delighted to
be working, they wouldn't be guide dogs. They wouldn't make
(04:43):
it through the process. That's exactly right. So it's not
to say that you can never um touch a guide dog.
Normally you want to leave them alone. Just rub them
gets to the story, right. But um, if you really
can't resist the urge Emily, UM, you can ask the handler,
the guy dog owner, the person who the guy dog
is assisting, if you compet their dog that way, they
(05:06):
can say not really, he's really concentrating now, or no,
you can go ahead and pet them, and then the
owner knows that now he needs to get the dog
back into his concentration working mode after he's been petted. Okay,
that's rule number one. Okay. Guy dogs are rule number two.
Typically allowed anywhere the general public is allowed, because if
(05:27):
they're not, then you're saying, oh no, only people who
can see are allowed into these public areas, which is
one of the best things about him and why you
want you know, why Emily wants to rub up against them,
because she's like, well, I'm in a library and there's
a dog. This is a bonus, right, you know, it's
a great library. Um. The thing is that since they're
allowed anywhere and their dog, and because there's people like
(05:49):
Emily walking around who wanted to pet them all the time,
the dog, it's up to the dog rather than Emily
to decide, like, let's keep things professional. Here, I'm not
going to create any kind of ruckus or disturbance. So
the dog has to be extraordinarily well trained, um to concentrate,
and what it's concentrating on is a certain prescribed set
(06:10):
of things, specifically how to take a direct route um,
and to stay in front of and just to the
left of the handler yep, at a steady pace. Yep.
You don't want a dog that like runs some and
then stops to smell and eat poop and then runs again. Uh.
The biggest, I would say, probably easily the biggest thing
(06:34):
a guy dog must do is have complete mastery of
the intersection in the crosswalk. Yeah, that's really where I mean,
stairs and cliffs and things like that are important, but
the crosswalk in the intersection is when it comes down
to brass tacks. That's the most important thing that a
guy dog needs to know how to do perfectly right
in the free time. The way that guy dog trainers
(06:55):
have established. UM. The importance of this is the guy
dogs are taught universally need to stop at every curb. Yeah,
and that's a good way to I mean, you should
train your dog to do that anyway. I wass thinking
if you can get your hands on a training manual
for a guide dog. Just use that. You could use
that for any dog and you have like a super
terrific A one dog. Yeah, I bet you could. That
(07:17):
sounds like a service Josh is a one dogs and
fingering powder. Um. Yeah, that's a good point and that's
a good way to train a dog anyway. Like I said,
you don't want your dog pulling you into an intersection,
even if you can see. Um. But back to guide dogs,
that is the most important thing. They have to stop
at every curb, sit and while they're sitting. And like
(07:40):
I said, these aren't just service dogs, because there's other
dogs if you have like epilepsy or if you're in
a wheelchair. Sometimes these are specifically for the blind. Um.
But they'll come to an intersection and they work together
as a unit. It's um. The dog stops and the
blind person listens. They listen for traffic and they listen
for traffics stopping, and then they tell the dog all right,
(08:03):
now we can go forward in in the intersection. But
here's the cool thing, and this is I think the
coolest thing in this article about guide dogs. The dog
doesn't just say okay, let's go the dogs as well.
You're saying it's okay, but you can't see, so why
don't you let me decide for sure if it's okay
if there's a car coming, Even if the handler says
(08:23):
move forward, the dog won't do it. The dog will wait,
wait until whatever hazard is coming is cleared, and then
we'll follow the command. It's called selective disobedience. Yes, it's
pretty spectacular. Yeah. When I lived in l A in
my first apartment, I lived across from my I don't
know if it was a dog training school or if
it was just a school for the blind, but all
(08:44):
the traffic lights around me made noises. Oh yeah, like wait,
no it was that would be good. Actually it was
just like these sounds, like these ticking sounds that they knew,
they knew what it meant. Or Gore's even better. There's
one's by Amy's in my house that say wait when
you press the button, wait and then I'll say, um,
(09:06):
what what street light is now red? And what street
you can cross depending on where the intersection is. Is
that just a new thing or is it near The
voice sounds pretty futuristic. No, but is it tied to
the blind or is it just yeah, I think that's
what it's for. Um, because yeah, it directs you, um
verbally across what street you can take right wait wait,
(09:31):
And it's funny because you can press the button a
few times will be like wait wait, wait wait, that's
kind of fun. I'm sure you've never done that though, right, Well,
what else is there to do while you're waiting for
a crosswalk light? Um? Today walk? That's right. You can
get a ticket for that in Los Angeles, by the way,
it's a way of life in New York. Yeah, don't
(09:52):
do it, no way. Um. Another thing the dog has
to do is to know how to um bring the
the handler to an elevator button instead of elevator buttons. Um. Yes,
stop its stairs at the bottom and the top until
told what to do. UM, lie there quietly when the
(10:12):
handlers sitting wherever the handler is. Yeah, that's a big one.
Like like part of being a guy dog is you
just have to just cut out all of the other
distractions that would drive any other dog bonkers, um and
just sit there. Because the first time a guy dog
acts like a regular dog in a public setting, a
(10:35):
guy dogs everywhere have a bad name. That's right, You
know well, and that's why they look sad to me.
Like what, I used to take Marta and there was
a guy dog frequently on the way home, um with
this lady and uh, the dog would just lay down
under the you know seat on the subway and just
look so sad. But I always had to tell myself,
this dog is not sad. When that harness comes off,
(10:57):
it's playtime. Were you saying that with like to you
might have teared up. So um, Like we said, they
work as a team. It's not the handler just giving
orders and it's not the dog just carrying out orders.
They have to work together, um because they the dog
doesn't know where to go, that's the handler's job, and
(11:20):
the handler doesn't know when to go or yeah, what
obstacles are coming up? Exactly. Put the two together. You
got a pretty great team, that's right. You have the
makings of a fine sitcom. So um, like you said,
after hours after they're working, when the harnesses on, the
dogs at work, it's concentrating. It knows everything to do.
(11:40):
When the harness is off, it's just like any other dog,
it's belly rub time. Right. A guy dog is both um,
a service dog and the family pet two. That's right.
So really genuinely don't feel like bad for service animals
when you see them out in public, Like they're treated
just as well and even better than other dogs back
(12:02):
at home. And from what I understand, they're really enjoying
themselves because they're like concentrating, their stimulated, they're going places.
They're just like sitting at home, you know, all day,
waiting for you know, their owner to come home and
let him out for a half hour on a leash. Yeah, exactly.
So there's a lot of a lot of people who
(12:23):
believe that guy dougs leave far more fulfilling lives than
the average house dog. Yeah, well dogs, It depends on
the breed, but in general, dogs have jobs, and if
you have a poorly behaved dog, that means it's probably
a breed that wants a job that doesn't have one,
or you just got a lemon. Like one of our
(12:43):
dogs is really bad. Lucy's terrible. She's thirteen and she's
still bad. Well, she was red to be a card dealer.
We haven't taken out of Vegas in a long time.
She was. She is a catahoula though, and they're they're
hurting dogs and she she needs a job. Basically, she's
never had a job. So her job has been to
poop in the house and to eat books and furniture
(13:05):
and stuff like that. Wait, what kind of job are
they supposed to do? Well, the Catahoulas were herds, like
she heard hers and things? Does she heard you guys
around the house? Like? Does she try to make sure
you're all in the same room at the same time?
Or uh no? No? Um, all right, so let's talk
about the process of schooling a guide dog. Um, they're
(13:28):
usually free. They will pair people up there. They're generally
nonprofits who run on donations. But yeah, if you wanted
to feel even better about people like guide dogs schools,
it's free. Yeah that you don't have to pay a
two thousand dollars for your well trained guide dog. They
will pair you as a person that can't see, with
(13:49):
a great dog for no charge. In general, although there
could be a lot of money in that. He started
proprivate dogs. Yeah, sure you could get a free one,
but if you want to really give one, you have
to pay for it. Um. So these the schools are
set up and pretty much handled the whole process from
soup to nuts, which includes breeding them sometimes and if
(14:13):
they're like really great guy dogs, they might go into
a breeding program afterwards. I have the impression that most
like major guide dog schools handled their own breeding. Yeah,
probably so. UM. They arrange the puppy raising programs, which
is where it all starts, which we'll get into in
a minute. Uh. They evaluate these dogs along the way,
they train them. Once they're ready, they train the instructors,
(14:34):
they train the handlers, They match the dog with the handler,
reevaluate them after a while, and eventually retire the dogs,
which is very sad and happy, which we'll we'll get
to that too, that's at the end. But you're talking
Golden Retrievers, labs. German shepherds are generally who you're going
to see because they're all whip smart and generally pretty nice, loyal, obedient,
(14:58):
train very trainable and confident too. That's one of the
a number one again qualities of UM a guide dog
is self confidence. UM. And that self confidence is UM
built up as a puppy. That's one of the main
things in a guide dog in training or pre training,
(15:20):
puppy guide dog raising person. Yeah, they who I think.
Alicia Howyte wrote this she interviewed. Um, no, this is
a Tom Harris joint. I wasn't. Okay, Tom interviewed someone
at a place called Guiding Eyes for the Blind in
New Yorktown Heights, New York. And we're gonna be referencing
them a lot as far as or that's who we're
talking about when we throw out some of these common stats, um,
(15:43):
like of the original puppies aren't suitable for to even
enter the program, Like they start weeding them out really early. Um,
they sell them as pets if they're not you know,
if they're part of that, or they may just not be.
They may be okay for service doll, but not good
for guide dogging, so they'll, um maybe send them to
(16:03):
another organization that will help people like with epilepsy, you're
in a wheelchair or something. Um. The ones that do
make it though, the ones that are like, Okay, you're
six week old puppy, and we can tell already that
you are probably going to be worth a shot, so
we're gonna send you into a training school pre training school.
(16:25):
Puppy raising is what it's called with just regular people
like you can go out and do this as if
you have the time and you have the patients and
you have the resources, you can actually get puppies to
the point where a year later you will then turn
them back over to a proper school a year to
a year and a half depending Um. And along the way,
(16:46):
you're you're going to be trained on how to raise
a puppy according to the standards of the school. Um.
They're not just gonna say here's a puppy, don't screw
it up. Um. There's usually weekly monthly court early meetings
with other puppy raisers where all the puppies get together
to ensure their socialized update things to make sure everybody's
(17:07):
on the same page with raising their puppies so that
there's evaluations. Um. And uh, Like we said that, what
they're trying to do is they're not training the puppies
at all. The main point of puppy raising is to
start to set up, um, how a puppy can become confident,
make it feel good about itself. And I take that back.
(17:29):
They are training themself in the basics sit, stay, lay down,
that kind of thing. Nothing advanced, just good basic obedience
exactly there. And then they're also getting the puppies used
to the idea of training for extended periods of time
on a daily basis. Um. And they're doing that by
taking the dog all over the place, anywhere that they
(17:50):
can get a dog into. They're going to take this
dog to expose it to new, um, new experiences every week. Yeah,
and after um, a certain amount of time, they'll get
their little co that says I'm a puppy dog in training.
Very cute little situation there, and uh, that's when they
can really take it anywhere they want to go. UM,
(18:10):
As I understand it, not necessarily like well, by law, yeah, right,
by law you can't. You're supposed to ask. But for
the most part, it's like, yeah, but socialization is a
big deal. Um. Like you said, they tried to expose
puppies to at least five new experiences a week, so um,
everything from other dogs being around, to being in a
(18:31):
shopping mall to going to jim Boree and having screaming kids,
you know, throwing their poop all over the place. Actually,
I don't know. If I take a puppy to be
trained to jim bree, it's probably that's probably like the
proving ground. Yeah, yeah, they can ignore that, um. But
basically what they want to do is develop a good
relationship with a dog, which will eventually transfer to their handler.
(18:54):
And we're talking about learning obedience, like just basic obedience. Um,
all guy dogs are taught not with treats. And there's
a very very good reason why you don't want to
teach a dog with treats, because if you have a
guy dog that's like food is a reward, and I
think a lot about food. As a matter of fact,
you could say I'm fixated on food boys. Yeah, and
(19:18):
you take that guy dog into like a dinner or Nathan's,
that guy dog's gonna have some real problems concentrating. So
you use praise and then correction through like just a
tug on a leash. Yeah, that's typical, like Caesar Milan stuff. Yeah,
one of those two. I saw one the other day
where he was training a dude was scared of dogs.
(19:42):
An adult, he had grown kids. He was like in
his probably late forties, and he was still frightened of dogs.
And it was h like every stupid episode of that show,
very emotional. Wells that music is pretty man up right
at the right time. Um, so wait, hold on, Chuck, Yeah,
(20:03):
I think we should do a little public service for
our listeners out there and teach them the whiz Bang,
a one no fail method of house breaking a dog
in as little as one day. All right, let's hear it.
Do you want me to Yeah, I've had my mean
my dog poops every day and eats it herself, so
I've done a poor job. Luckily peace when it thunders.
(20:26):
Do you have a thunder shirt for him? Yeah? I
got We call it thunderbuddy. It helps a little bit.
But if we're not home and it's thundering, he'll he'll pee.
Do you give him sed it is or anything? No,
it's just you know, I just clean up the pay alright.
So yeah, if you have a puppy, Yeah, they say
you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I don't
know if that's true or not. But with a puppy
(20:47):
it's easier. I think that should be you can't teach
an old dog new tricks, Comma, I don't know if
that's true or not, semi colon. With a puppy, it's easier.
That should be the full adage. That's the a Ones logan.
So you take you take your puppy outside once an
hour pretty much and you take them to the same
place outside and you wait, wait until they finally start
(21:12):
to go, and when they go, you say, puppy's name
insert it here, Uh, do your thing, yeah, or whatever
you choose to say, and then you praise that dog
like it just saved your life. And then the next
time you take the dog out again, and you wait.
You do that a couple of times, and then maybe
by the third or fourth time, you take the dog
(21:32):
out to the same place and you say, puppy, do
your thing, and that dog will probably pier poop on
command for the rest of its life. Yeah, I say,
go potty, and it works still, especially when it's thundering,
Go potty. He's like, dude, perfect. And again, the reason
why you want a dog to that will only pier
(21:54):
poop on command is because again, you can't have a
guide dog pooping in public because people be like, well,
what's we need to legislate guide dogs? Yeah, your dog
dog pooping a library, Yeah exactly. This lady over here
is rubbing against the dog while it's pooping. Yeah. Plus,
you know you don't want your dog taking a big
dump in front of Forever twenty one because little kids
(22:16):
at them all will be turned off by that. Uh. So,
like you said, puppies are evaluated um every few months,
UM during training and UM eventually, like we said, at
about the year a year and a half mark, the
saddest day ever happens and you have to take that
puppy that you raised and turned them over to a school. UM.
(22:39):
And they did an interview with a lady who raised
the dog named Sonar. Her name is Mary Kondo. Yeah,
and it sounds like she does this a lot, and
she had a really good attitude. She's like, here's so
I'll look at it. Add three kids and I raised
them and eventually sent them out into the world. So
I'm gonna do this with this dog. And they provide
a service, and we don't look at it as losing
(23:00):
this dog. We look at it as like we've given
someone a gift of a well trained uh puppy and
h a lot of people will get another one right
after that and start all over again. Yeah. I think also,
once you prove yourself as an able and capable UM
guide dog puppy razor, like, they'll they'll keep coming back
(23:21):
every time to ask you if you wanted to do
it again. Yeah, And you may one day, actually maybe
one day soon get that dog back if it gets
kicked out of the program. Yeah, because, like you said
right off, the bat aren't even aren't even trained as puppies. Um.
Of the ones that go through puppy training and are
(23:42):
brought back after twelve or eighteen months, fifty of those
will just be like turned down. Yeah. And a lot
of times they'll offer them back to the original puppy
razor say hey, do you want this dog? Um, you failed,
would you like the dog back as a token to
commemorate your failure or are the sweetest thing? Ever? Perhaps
(24:03):
when that dog retires you might get it back. Yeah.
Usually if the person who has the guy dog, ye
the handler. The handler can't because they need another guy
dog after that one retires. If they can't keep two dogs,
keep the other one of the pet, then I think
you have first shot if you raise it as a puppy. Yeah.
Could you imagine like raising this puppy, giving away, and
(24:26):
like ten years later getting it back Christian the Lion
or something. Yeah, you know that's right. Uh So, once
your puppy has been raised and it goes to regular school, Um,
they're gonna basically reinforce and train everything they've already learned
and then introduced like all the serious parts of schooling.
(24:49):
Like here's an intersection, here's a cliff here stairs. A
lot of the schools have fake intersections built so they
can really you know, do like hands on training there
on the campus, right. And this is like intensive training.
This isn't like whenever some burnout who like lives at
the school gets around to it. Like, this is intensive
training like every every day from multiple people, one of
(25:13):
whom the dog trainer, the master trainer is actually assisted
by other apprentice trainers, um and and like it's a
very intensive um months long training. Yeah, about six months,
I think. Yeah, And that's after a year to a
year and a half of puppy training. So by the
time I handled uh gets it, that's you know, a
(25:36):
couple of years old. Well, not only is there so
there's puppy training, six months of intensive dog school training,
and then when the handlers finally matched, there's a whole
month where the handler and the dog are trained together
and the matching process takes a little while too. You know,
they don't just throw any dog with any person. That's
got to be a just like adopting any dog, it's
(25:56):
gotta be a good personality match for you. So, Chuck Water,
let's go back to dog training school. We got a
little excited. Okay, um right, So, like you said, a
lot of places will have their own intersections built simulated. Um.
The first step before they ever get to that point
is learning to walk like a guy dog in a
(26:18):
straight line, a little forward ahead of the handler and
slightly to the left, up and to the left. One,
and this is a big one. The guy dog has
to be taught to think of its of the world
in human size dog's eye view any longer, but human size,
because apparently they pick up pretty easily, like, well, there's
(26:40):
a garbage can. I need to make a wide arc
around the garbage cancer that the guy I'm leading doesn't
run into the garbage can. But what about that narrow
cravasse that I can fit through, no problem? But my
blind guy is a big fatty in the way he
can fit through their Look at this guy exactly, I'm
gonna have to go around the block because he can't
(27:00):
go down this alleyway. Right. A dog has to think
in terms of of its world like that, And that's
that's enormous to be able to train something like that,
and for the dog to be able to learn like that,
that's just really my hat is off, like over and
over again. I'm just not even putting it back on
for the rest of this episode. Uh yeah. The one
that really knocked me out was the headroom. Like the dog,
(27:23):
even though it's two and a half feet off the ground,
will be able to look up and say, this guy
might or lady might bang her head on this low
hanging beam. I shouldn't go into the shouldn't go in there.
You stay out of the sewer. So that's just amazing,
Like the dog has to look up and know how
tall the owner is and gauge how low that beam is. Unreal.
(27:48):
That matched again with the most spectacular thing in the world,
selective disobedience, um stopping at all curbs, all stairs, um
learning all of the commands, Uh, go to the right,
go to the left, forward you mean? And I watched
Short Circule last night holds up pretty well. Um, except
(28:09):
that just as crappy as it was exactly the Fisher
Stevens character. The Indian programmer is so racist contests because
it's a white guy doing like the worst Indian impression
Acky Rooney and and what's it called? I have no
idea breakfast at Tippany's. He played the Mr Moto or
(28:30):
whatever the Chinese. Yeah, oh, I have to watch that
very famous racist portrayal. But anyway, like Johnny, they couldn't
get Johnny five to to come for Ali Shed. He
couldn't until she stumbled upon Forward. She's like, come here,
come this way walk and he was just standing there
and she's like forward and he's like, oh, forward goes forward.
So guy dogs and sentient robots, you have to stay
(28:53):
forward from the eighties, all right. So we said before
of the puppies are weeded out off the top. Out
of those puppies who go to school, about fifty of
those are kicked out of school. And then finally, once
those remaining are in school, only about those graduate. So
(29:14):
they really weed out. To say, out of four hundred
dogs that go through puppy training, you've got like a
hundred and forty can eventually graduate and go on to
be matched with a handler. Um. And you know, there
there are a few things that will weed a dog out,
even if they're pretty good. If they're like aggressive towards
cats or something you know, that'll weed them out, so
(29:34):
they really get the cream of the crop. Drug problems gone.
They don't want any drug abusers in there, so they
get the cream of the crop. At the end, make
sure they're compatible with their handler, train the handler with
the people, and then boom, you've got a match made
in heaven. Yeah. In the article, Tom Harris says, like,
if you're if you're taking a first time handler, somebody
(29:58):
who hasn't had a guy dog before. Um, by the
time the handler comes in and you're putting it together
with the dog, now you're basically in people training mode.
Your guide dogs already trained. The process is training the
handler in the commands that that the dog already knows, um,
training the handler how to walk and and basically taking
(30:19):
these this person and this dog and teaching them how
to work as a team. Yeah. And the dog has
you know, this is their new master. They've had their
instructor for six months or more. So it takes a
little while to adjust to this fact that hey, this
is my new my new alpha dog. Yeah, and usually
it takes I think on average about a month. That's
about the time that set aside um. And so these
(30:43):
nonprofit guide dog schools have like facilities for blind people
to come live while they're spending a month learning how
to work with their guide dog. Yeah, some of them
have dorms. That's pretty cool. That's very cool. And again
we should say all of this is free. The nonprofit
group is shouldering all of the financial burden of puppy rasors. Um.
(31:07):
They're given a stipend for food, All bills are paid
by them the guide dog school. Um. They everything, everything
that has to do with the training and the raising
of these dogs is paid for um by these nonprofit groups.
So amazing. If you're looking for a place to leave
an inheritance, you could do worse than a guide dog school.
(31:30):
That Josh is a one dog school. Right. I'll give
you my text information if you email me directly. UM.
So if you want to be an instructor, it's gonna
vary depending on what school you're gonna try and go to,
but generally you have to have two to three years
UM experience as an apprentice supervised apprentice UH, and then
(31:51):
different states have certification processes. Um. You're probably a college graduate. Um.
Even though the job doesn't pay, it's still really hard
to get this job. People want to do this, so
it's it's wait listed a lot of times, not a
lot of openings, and it's a tough job to get.
It's very demanding physically and emotionally, and it's a real
(32:13):
challenge as a trainer, but super rewarding. What don't you think?
And if you are interested in becoming a master trainer,
from what I understand, the best route to take is
to start by being a puppy razor, work your way
up to apprentice trainer and then to master trainer. And
who knows, you may just feel like topping out at
um puppy raiser. Anybody can do it. Violent application have
(32:36):
to be, you know, pass of course it has to.
I would imagine you. I don't see how you could
have a job like a regular it's probably yeah, because
I mean, if you're exposing a dog to five new
things a week, Yeah, I guess you could balance the
two if it was like my work and this puppy. Yeah.
(32:56):
But even still, I don't know. I would think you'd
probably get bumped off a lot. And they're screening you
too to make sure you're like a super awesome person, right,
and you're not like I'm gonna explose them to the
back of my hand. You have like stains on the
sleeveless undershirt that you wore to that puppy raising application meeting.
(33:18):
Give me like four of them puppies. I'll train them good.
They may pass you by. Yeah. Yeah, so uh yeah,
anybody can do it, I guess, is what we're trying
to say almost to anybody. Yeah, and I don't I
don't know if they how heavily they screen as far
as like if you have kids, or you can have
other dogs, even other puppies, but your puppy has to
be I think seven months old. Yeah, And I guess
(33:39):
the whole point is they have to deal with those
distractions right anyway, bad thing. That's exactly what the mind
thought processes behind that. Uh. And like we said, they
retire generally eight to ten years old, um, although that
doesn't mean they're like old and feeble. That just means
it's probably time to get a new guide dog. Right.
(33:59):
They are sharp mentally typically, um, but they're starting to
slow down a little bit and they have to be
able to keep pace with their their handlers. So yeah,
I think about eight to ten is the usual age
that they're retired. Yeah, and like you said, they'll offer
it to the handler. If the handlers like, yeah, I
can handle like keeping this dog and still get my
new guy dog, then great. If not, they may offer
(34:19):
to the original puppy raiser, or you might be lucky enough.
It's another waitless deal because people want to adopt retired
guy dogs because they're pretty much the best and you
may not have as much time with them, but it's
you're providing them with Like it's almost like, you know,
taking in an old person and giving them something great
in their twilight years, right, like just letting them whip
(34:43):
cream right out of the can in time they want
kind of thing, whoop wherever you want. They're like, dude,
what's wrong with you? Poop into my hand? The dog
just seeds are crazy. It's like I remember I used
to work, Yeah, asked me to do? I love that
blind guy so much more? Did you? I can't even
(35:05):
mention it on this, I think, all right, all right, Uh,
you got anything else about guide dogs? This was a
little wackier than I thought it was gonna be. Okay, Well,
if you want to learn all about guide dogs, you
can type guide dogs into the search bar at how
Stuff works dot com. And since I said switch bar,
it's time for friends a message break hit the jingle. Uh, now, Chuck,
(35:31):
it's time for listener mail. That's right, and this is
dog centric. It just worked out that way. Uh. This
is from an e R doctor whose passion is animal
rescue and her name is Jane M. Gene Ab j
e n a B. I never heard that j e
n a B. Yeah, Jeanette. Uh so, Jane says, I
(35:53):
have a charity knitting site, guys, where I donate of
the proceeds from selling my hand into items to an
animal rescue in your neck of the woods. Actually, Angels
among Us pet rescue in Alpharetta, Georgia. Do you remember them? Yeah? Well,
how do I know that name? In either may be
like the can dogs detect like death? Or can dogs
(36:15):
tell when you're gonna die? Or can dogs detect illness?
Remember the chihuahua that could detect breast cancer? And um,
I feel like we talked about that organization in that episode.
I think you're right. So Angels among Us in Alpharetta
they rescued thousands of dogs and cats from kill shelters
right before being euthanized and found them loving homes. Last year,
(36:38):
my knitting site donated five thousand dollars to their cause,
and this year my goal is six thousand dollars. And
this is like she's just knitting, selling this stuff and
given all the money away. Knitting, knitting, knitting. A few
days ago, I lost my fifteen year old rescue girl, Rica,
Japanese for a beautiful girl. I rescued her when she
(36:58):
was eight weeks old and she was with me through marriage, divorce,
medical school, residency, and first four years of practice. She
moved with me from Denver to Tulsa, to Kansas City,
to Grand Junction, Colorado, to Mendesito, California, and back to Denver.
Her loss has broken my heart, but it has also
inspired me to work even harder to accomplish my goal
(37:18):
for other homeless animals, including asking for help spreading the words. Guys,
I would love it uh to make you both some
hand knitted hats for the winner if you think you'd
enjoy them. The links to my page on Facebook and
too Angels among Us or below you can see pictures
of the hats, baby hats, dog sweaters, all kinds of
things I can knit. UM, thanks for your consideration but
(37:40):
more than anything, thanks for a fantastic podcast that keeps
me entertained and educated. Uh So, this is from Jane
genab m d, owner of Jane's Creations, and we would
like to challenge people to go out and buy one
of her knitted gifts because that money is going to
go to Angels among Us Pet Rescue. That is so cool.
So go to our Facebook page um Facebook dot com
(38:02):
slash Jane's Creations j A. N. E. S. Creations of Denver, Colorado,
or just check out Angels among Us Pet Rescue at
Facebook dot com slash Angels Rescue. And uh, let's help
her reach that goal of six thousand bucks because that's
pretty awesome. Let's do it. Let's make it an official
s y s K thing. And hey, you know what,
(38:25):
Jerry adopted her cute little dog, Tooley from Angels among
Us going with the drum com Yeah, doing that washed
out of God dogs. Yeah, the tweaker but yes, so
we have a personal connection to and um, let's let's
do it, Chuck. Let's make it an official s y
s K thing to raise some money for this. Yeah,
so go to Facebook dot com slash Jaane's Creations and
(38:46):
uh Ja dot Cars, corresponding with her own email, I
was very sad to hear about Rica, but she's got
other animals because she's an animal crazy person just like me.
It's nice. Animal crazy people are the best crazy people around. Agreed. Uh,
if you want us to help try to raise some
money for a very worthy cause via you get in
(39:08):
touch at this, We're gonna have to check you out,
make sure you're legit, make sure you're not, you know,
making money off of other people's good will. Ye tacky,
And we get a lot of these so unfortunately can't
like get everyone on the air, but we do our best.
We try. UM. You can get in touch with us
via Twitter at s y SK podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
(39:29):
You can send us an email directly to Stuff podcast
at Discovery dot com. And you can join us on
our website, which is pretty awesome. It's called Stuff you
Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com.
(39:55):
Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla
Brought to you by the all new team Toyota Corolla.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast on Josh,
there's Chuck and we hope we sound correct. Yes, yeah,
(00:20):
what does that mean? Well, Jerry was looking at her
putting the headphones up to her years, so like, she's
not you paying attention to here. Basically, what you're saying
is we have no quality control gong on it right now. Well,
no we did, because Jerry had the headphones up to
her years. Yeah, now we don't. She checks in. Occasionally
she wakes up and says, yeah, yeah, yeah, what so Chuck, Yes,
(00:45):
how's it going. It's going great. How are you? I'm
doing good? Good? Um? Huh do you look well? Thank
you very much? Healthy, fit, well, happy, sun kissed, sun kissed. Yeah,
it's really good, um, Chuck. Have you ever seen a
guide dog a guy dog? Guide? Oh? Yeah yeah, guide
(01:09):
dogs them all the time. Do you know why they
are also called seeing eye dogs are used to be
uh well, because guide dogs specifically, unlike the general term
service dogs, are to help guide around people who cannot see.
That is a pretty nice story, but it's not entirely
correct feeling. Seeing Eye dogs were actually UM part of
(01:31):
a company called the Seeing Eye was the first American
guide dog training company. UH. And it wasn't the Americans
who came up with training guide dogs. It was actually
the Germans UH. In Potstam, Germany, the first UM guide
dog training Academy was set up to help veterans that
(01:52):
have been blinded in World War One. UM and it
was successful. It didn't really take off. UM. But a woman,
an American woman living in Switzerland. Her name was Dorothy
Harris Eustace. She was very wealthy American, heard about this
when visited the school and said, this is pretty awesome.
Came back, waited a few years before she got around
(02:12):
to writing an article and it was published in the
Saturday Evening Post. And a young uh blind whipper snapper
named UM Norman Rockwell, No, his name was Morris Frank.
He heard about it and he got in touch with
Mrs Eustace and said, I would like one of these dogs.
Can you help me out? He said? She said, not
(02:34):
only will I help you out, I'm gonna fly you
to pot Stamp to Switzerland. Actually you're going to be
trained with a dog and we give you ten thousand
dollars to go start the first school in America. So
Morris Frank took the took her up on it, took
the ten thousand dollars and started in Tennessee the Seeing
Eye Dog School. So are you saying that Seeing Eye
(02:56):
dogs are the Kleenex of the working service dog world.
That's very apt. It's actually a brand name. Interesting. I
never knew that to see. He asked how I like this,
and I said, nothing really surprised me. It was a
good article, but I wasn't surprised. And here you go,
surprising me right off the bat. Thanks. All right, guy dogs,
let's get to it. Eight. Yeah, it's a pretty straightforward stuff,
(03:18):
but it's neat to know the details of things. Like
first of all, if you ever see a guy dog,
it's actually working and you should leave it alone. Yeah,
that's um in my house. It's difficult with Emily. Yeah,
you're really not supposed to do that. I know, and
she doesn't. But dude, she's like a five year old
(03:39):
like she will. I have seen her fake like she's
going to look for something and just brush up her
hand against the dog's head, like in a store, like
let me go look at the cereal and she'll just
brush up and be like that didn't mean to bet
your your guide dogs. She's like a frauder. She's like
a frauderist for guy dogs. Yeah, basically is that people
(03:59):
who rub up against yourself in public? Yeah, yeah, she
can't help it, dude, when she sees a dog, she's
like she just cannot not touch. So and it's understandable,
especially with guide dogs. Why Emily would do that because
it's like dogs and then five echelons up guide dogs, right,
Not only are they dogs, which are great animals to
(04:21):
begin with, but they're dogs that actually help not only
just regular people, but people who can't see. So it's
like you just want to pet them and be like
it's the greatest thing on the planet, and they look sad,
which makes you want to pet him even more. But
people they are not sad. They are working and they're
delighted to be working. Because if they're not delighted to
be working, they wouldn't be guide dogs. They wouldn't make
(04:43):
it through the process. That's exactly right. So it's not
to say that you can never um touch a guide dog.
Normally you want to leave them alone. Just rub them
gets to the story, right. But um, if you really
can't resist the urge Emily, UM, you can ask the handler,
the guy dog owner, the person who the guy dog
is assisting, if you compet their dog that way, they
(05:06):
can say not really, he's really concentrating now, or no,
you can go ahead and pet them, and then the
owner knows that now he needs to get the dog
back into his concentration working mode after he's been petted. Okay,
that's rule number one. Okay. Guy dogs are rule number two.
Typically allowed anywhere the general public is allowed, because if
(05:27):
they're not, then you're saying, oh no, only people who
can see are allowed into these public areas, which is
one of the best things about him and why you
want you know, why Emily wants to rub up against them,
because she's like, well, I'm in a library and there's
a dog. This is a bonus, right, you know, it's
a great library. Um. The thing is that since they're
allowed anywhere and their dog, and because there's people like
(05:49):
Emily walking around who wanted to pet them all the time,
the dog, it's up to the dog rather than Emily
to decide, like, let's keep things professional. Here, I'm not
going to create any kind of ruckus or disturbance. So
the dog has to be extraordinarily well trained, um to concentrate,
and what it's concentrating on is a certain prescribed set
(06:10):
of things, specifically how to take a direct route um,
and to stay in front of and just to the
left of the handler yep, at a steady pace. Yep.
You don't want a dog that like runs some and
then stops to smell and eat poop and then runs again. Uh.
The biggest, I would say, probably easily the biggest thing
(06:34):
a guy dog must do is have complete mastery of
the intersection in the crosswalk. Yeah, that's really where I mean,
stairs and cliffs and things like that are important, but
the crosswalk in the intersection is when it comes down
to brass tacks. That's the most important thing that a
guy dog needs to know how to do perfectly right
in the free time. The way that guy dog trainers
(06:55):
have established. UM. The importance of this is the guy
dogs are taught universally need to stop at every curb. Yeah,
and that's a good way to I mean, you should
train your dog to do that anyway. I wass thinking
if you can get your hands on a training manual
for a guide dog. Just use that. You could use
that for any dog and you have like a super
terrific A one dog. Yeah, I bet you could. That
(07:17):
sounds like a service Josh is a one dogs and
fingering powder. Um. Yeah, that's a good point and that's
a good way to train a dog anyway. Like I said,
you don't want your dog pulling you into an intersection,
even if you can see. Um. But back to guide dogs,
that is the most important thing. They have to stop
at every curb, sit and while they're sitting. And like
(07:40):
I said, these aren't just service dogs, because there's other
dogs if you have like epilepsy or if you're in
a wheelchair. Sometimes these are specifically for the blind. Um.
But they'll come to an intersection and they work together
as a unit. It's um. The dog stops and the
blind person listens. They listen for traffic and they listen
for traffics stopping, and then they tell the dog all right,
(08:03):
now we can go forward in in the intersection. But
here's the cool thing, and this is I think the
coolest thing in this article about guide dogs. The dog
doesn't just say okay, let's go the dogs as well.
You're saying it's okay, but you can't see, so why
don't you let me decide for sure if it's okay
if there's a car coming, Even if the handler says
(08:23):
move forward, the dog won't do it. The dog will wait,
wait until whatever hazard is coming is cleared, and then
we'll follow the command. It's called selective disobedience. Yes, it's
pretty spectacular. Yeah. When I lived in l A in
my first apartment, I lived across from my I don't
know if it was a dog training school or if
it was just a school for the blind, but all
(08:44):
the traffic lights around me made noises. Oh yeah, like wait,
no it was that would be good. Actually it was
just like these sounds, like these ticking sounds that they knew,
they knew what it meant. Or Gore's even better. There's
one's by Amy's in my house that say wait when
you press the button, wait and then I'll say, um,
(09:06):
what what street light is now red? And what street
you can cross depending on where the intersection is. Is
that just a new thing or is it near The
voice sounds pretty futuristic. No, but is it tied to
the blind or is it just yeah, I think that's
what it's for. Um, because yeah, it directs you, um
verbally across what street you can take right wait wait,
(09:31):
And it's funny because you can press the button a
few times will be like wait wait, wait wait, that's
kind of fun. I'm sure you've never done that though, right, Well,
what else is there to do while you're waiting for
a crosswalk light? Um? Today walk? That's right. You can
get a ticket for that in Los Angeles, by the way,
it's a way of life in New York. Yeah, don't
(09:52):
do it, no way. Um. Another thing the dog has
to do is to know how to um bring the
the handler to an elevator button instead of elevator buttons. Um. Yes,
stop its stairs at the bottom and the top until
told what to do. UM, lie there quietly when the
(10:12):
handlers sitting wherever the handler is. Yeah, that's a big one.
Like like part of being a guy dog is you
just have to just cut out all of the other
distractions that would drive any other dog bonkers, um and
just sit there. Because the first time a guy dog
acts like a regular dog in a public setting, a
(10:35):
guy dogs everywhere have a bad name. That's right, You
know well, and that's why they look sad to me.
Like what, I used to take Marta and there was
a guy dog frequently on the way home, um with
this lady and uh, the dog would just lay down
under the you know seat on the subway and just
look so sad. But I always had to tell myself,
this dog is not sad. When that harness comes off,
(10:57):
it's playtime. Were you saying that with like to you
might have teared up. So um, Like we said, they
work as a team. It's not the handler just giving
orders and it's not the dog just carrying out orders.
They have to work together, um because they the dog
doesn't know where to go, that's the handler's job, and
(11:20):
the handler doesn't know when to go or yeah, what
obstacles are coming up? Exactly. Put the two together. You
got a pretty great team, that's right. You have the
makings of a fine sitcom. So um, like you said,
after hours after they're working, when the harnesses on, the
dogs at work, it's concentrating. It knows everything to do.
(11:40):
When the harness is off, it's just like any other dog,
it's belly rub time. Right. A guy dog is both um,
a service dog and the family pet two. That's right.
So really genuinely don't feel like bad for service animals
when you see them out in public, Like they're treated
just as well and even better than other dogs back
(12:02):
at home. And from what I understand, they're really enjoying
themselves because they're like concentrating, their stimulated, they're going places.
They're just like sitting at home, you know, all day,
waiting for you know, their owner to come home and
let him out for a half hour on a leash. Yeah, exactly.
So there's a lot of a lot of people who
(12:23):
believe that guy dougs leave far more fulfilling lives than
the average house dog. Yeah, well dogs, It depends on
the breed, but in general, dogs have jobs, and if
you have a poorly behaved dog, that means it's probably
a breed that wants a job that doesn't have one,
or you just got a lemon. Like one of our
(12:43):
dogs is really bad. Lucy's terrible. She's thirteen and she's
still bad. Well, she was red to be a card dealer.
We haven't taken out of Vegas in a long time.
She was. She is a catahoula though, and they're they're
hurting dogs and she she needs a job. Basically, she's
never had a job. So her job has been to
poop in the house and to eat books and furniture
(13:05):
and stuff like that. Wait, what kind of job are
they supposed to do? Well, the Catahoulas were herds, like
she heard hers and things? Does she heard you guys
around the house? Like? Does she try to make sure
you're all in the same room at the same time?
Or uh no? No? Um, all right, so let's talk
about the process of schooling a guide dog. Um, they're
(13:28):
usually free. They will pair people up there. They're generally
nonprofits who run on donations. But yeah, if you wanted
to feel even better about people like guide dogs schools,
it's free. Yeah that you don't have to pay a
two thousand dollars for your well trained guide dog. They
will pair you as a person that can't see, with
(13:49):
a great dog for no charge. In general, although there
could be a lot of money in that. He started
proprivate dogs. Yeah, sure you could get a free one,
but if you want to really give one, you have
to pay for it. Um. So these the schools are
set up and pretty much handled the whole process from
soup to nuts, which includes breeding them sometimes and if
(14:13):
they're like really great guy dogs, they might go into
a breeding program afterwards. I have the impression that most
like major guide dog schools handled their own breeding. Yeah,
probably so. UM. They arrange the puppy raising programs, which
is where it all starts, which we'll get into in
a minute. Uh. They evaluate these dogs along the way,
they train them. Once they're ready, they train the instructors,
(14:34):
they train the handlers, They match the dog with the handler,
reevaluate them after a while, and eventually retire the dogs,
which is very sad and happy, which we'll we'll get
to that too, that's at the end. But you're talking
Golden Retrievers, labs. German shepherds are generally who you're going
to see because they're all whip smart and generally pretty nice, loyal, obedient,
(14:58):
train very trainable and confident too. That's one of the
a number one again qualities of UM a guide dog
is self confidence. UM. And that self confidence is UM
built up as a puppy. That's one of the main
things in a guide dog in training or pre training,
(15:20):
puppy guide dog raising person. Yeah, they who I think.
Alicia Howyte wrote this she interviewed. Um, no, this is
a Tom Harris joint. I wasn't. Okay, Tom interviewed someone
at a place called Guiding Eyes for the Blind in
New Yorktown Heights, New York. And we're gonna be referencing
them a lot as far as or that's who we're
talking about when we throw out some of these common stats, um,
(15:43):
like of the original puppies aren't suitable for to even
enter the program, Like they start weeding them out really early. Um,
they sell them as pets if they're not you know,
if they're part of that, or they may just not be.
They may be okay for service doll, but not good
for guide dogging, so they'll, um maybe send them to
(16:03):
another organization that will help people like with epilepsy, you're
in a wheelchair or something. Um. The ones that do
make it though, the ones that are like, Okay, you're
six week old puppy, and we can tell already that
you are probably going to be worth a shot, so
we're gonna send you into a training school pre training school.
(16:25):
Puppy raising is what it's called with just regular people
like you can go out and do this as if
you have the time and you have the patients and
you have the resources, you can actually get puppies to
the point where a year later you will then turn
them back over to a proper school a year to
a year and a half depending Um. And along the way,
(16:46):
you're you're going to be trained on how to raise
a puppy according to the standards of the school. Um.
They're not just gonna say here's a puppy, don't screw
it up. Um. There's usually weekly monthly court early meetings
with other puppy raisers where all the puppies get together
to ensure their socialized update things to make sure everybody's
(17:07):
on the same page with raising their puppies so that
there's evaluations. Um. And uh, Like we said that, what
they're trying to do is they're not training the puppies
at all. The main point of puppy raising is to
start to set up, um, how a puppy can become confident,
make it feel good about itself. And I take that back.
(17:29):
They are training themself in the basics sit, stay, lay down,
that kind of thing. Nothing advanced, just good basic obedience
exactly there. And then they're also getting the puppies used
to the idea of training for extended periods of time
on a daily basis. Um. And they're doing that by
taking the dog all over the place, anywhere that they
(17:50):
can get a dog into. They're going to take this
dog to expose it to new, um, new experiences every week. Yeah,
and after um, a certain amount of time, they'll get
their little co that says I'm a puppy dog in training.
Very cute little situation there, and uh, that's when they
can really take it anywhere they want to go. UM,
(18:10):
As I understand it, not necessarily like well, by law, yeah, right,
by law you can't. You're supposed to ask. But for
the most part, it's like, yeah, but socialization is a
big deal. Um. Like you said, they tried to expose
puppies to at least five new experiences a week, so um,
everything from other dogs being around, to being in a
(18:31):
shopping mall to going to jim Boree and having screaming kids,
you know, throwing their poop all over the place. Actually,
I don't know. If I take a puppy to be
trained to jim bree, it's probably that's probably like the
proving ground. Yeah, yeah, they can ignore that, um. But
basically what they want to do is develop a good
relationship with a dog, which will eventually transfer to their handler.
(18:54):
And we're talking about learning obedience, like just basic obedience. Um,
all guy dogs are taught not with treats. And there's
a very very good reason why you don't want to
teach a dog with treats, because if you have a
guy dog that's like food is a reward, and I
think a lot about food. As a matter of fact,
you could say I'm fixated on food boys. Yeah, and
(19:18):
you take that guy dog into like a dinner or Nathan's,
that guy dog's gonna have some real problems concentrating. So
you use praise and then correction through like just a
tug on a leash. Yeah, that's typical, like Caesar Milan stuff. Yeah,
one of those two. I saw one the other day
where he was training a dude was scared of dogs.
(19:42):
An adult, he had grown kids. He was like in
his probably late forties, and he was still frightened of dogs.
And it was h like every stupid episode of that show,
very emotional. Wells that music is pretty man up right
at the right time. Um, so wait, hold on, Chuck, Yeah,
(20:03):
I think we should do a little public service for
our listeners out there and teach them the whiz Bang,
a one no fail method of house breaking a dog
in as little as one day. All right, let's hear it.
Do you want me to Yeah, I've had my mean
my dog poops every day and eats it herself, so
I've done a poor job. Luckily peace when it thunders.
(20:26):
Do you have a thunder shirt for him? Yeah? I
got We call it thunderbuddy. It helps a little bit.
But if we're not home and it's thundering, he'll he'll pee.
Do you give him sed it is or anything? No,
it's just you know, I just clean up the pay alright.
So yeah, if you have a puppy, Yeah, they say
you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I don't
know if that's true or not. But with a puppy
(20:47):
it's easier. I think that should be you can't teach
an old dog new tricks, Comma, I don't know if
that's true or not, semi colon. With a puppy, it's easier.
That should be the full adage. That's the a Ones logan.
So you take you take your puppy outside once an
hour pretty much and you take them to the same
place outside and you wait, wait until they finally start
(21:12):
to go, and when they go, you say, puppy's name
insert it here, Uh, do your thing, yeah, or whatever
you choose to say, and then you praise that dog
like it just saved your life. And then the next
time you take the dog out again, and you wait.
You do that a couple of times, and then maybe
by the third or fourth time, you take the dog
(21:32):
out to the same place and you say, puppy, do
your thing, and that dog will probably pier poop on
command for the rest of its life. Yeah, I say,
go potty, and it works still, especially when it's thundering,
Go potty. He's like, dude, perfect. And again, the reason
why you want a dog to that will only pier
(21:54):
poop on command is because again, you can't have a
guide dog pooping in public because people be like, well,
what's we need to legislate guide dogs? Yeah, your dog
dog pooping a library, Yeah exactly. This lady over here
is rubbing against the dog while it's pooping. Yeah. Plus,
you know you don't want your dog taking a big
dump in front of Forever twenty one because little kids
(22:16):
at them all will be turned off by that. Uh. So,
like you said, puppies are evaluated um every few months,
UM during training and UM eventually, like we said, at
about the year a year and a half mark, the
saddest day ever happens and you have to take that
puppy that you raised and turned them over to a school. UM.
(22:39):
And they did an interview with a lady who raised
the dog named Sonar. Her name is Mary Kondo. Yeah,
and it sounds like she does this a lot, and
she had a really good attitude. She's like, here's so
I'll look at it. Add three kids and I raised
them and eventually sent them out into the world. So
I'm gonna do this with this dog. And they provide
a service, and we don't look at it as losing
(23:00):
this dog. We look at it as like we've given
someone a gift of a well trained uh puppy and
h a lot of people will get another one right
after that and start all over again. Yeah. I think also,
once you prove yourself as an able and capable UM
guide dog puppy razor, like, they'll they'll keep coming back
(23:21):
every time to ask you if you wanted to do
it again. Yeah, And you may one day, actually maybe
one day soon get that dog back if it gets
kicked out of the program. Yeah, because, like you said
right off, the bat aren't even aren't even trained as puppies. Um.
Of the ones that go through puppy training and are
(23:42):
brought back after twelve or eighteen months, fifty of those
will just be like turned down. Yeah. And a lot
of times they'll offer them back to the original puppy
razor say hey, do you want this dog? Um, you failed,
would you like the dog back as a token to
commemorate your failure or are the sweetest thing? Ever? Perhaps
(24:03):
when that dog retires you might get it back. Yeah.
Usually if the person who has the guy dog, ye
the handler. The handler can't because they need another guy
dog after that one retires. If they can't keep two dogs,
keep the other one of the pet, then I think
you have first shot if you raise it as a puppy. Yeah.
Could you imagine like raising this puppy, giving away, and
(24:26):
like ten years later getting it back Christian the Lion
or something. Yeah, you know that's right. Uh So, once
your puppy has been raised and it goes to regular school, Um,
they're gonna basically reinforce and train everything they've already learned
and then introduced like all the serious parts of schooling.
(24:49):
Like here's an intersection, here's a cliff here stairs. A
lot of the schools have fake intersections built so they
can really you know, do like hands on training there
on the campus, right. And this is like intensive training.
This isn't like whenever some burnout who like lives at
the school gets around to it. Like, this is intensive
training like every every day from multiple people, one of
(25:13):
whom the dog trainer, the master trainer is actually assisted
by other apprentice trainers, um and and like it's a
very intensive um months long training. Yeah, about six months,
I think. Yeah, And that's after a year to a
year and a half of puppy training. So by the
time I handled uh gets it, that's you know, a
(25:36):
couple of years old. Well, not only is there so
there's puppy training, six months of intensive dog school training,
and then when the handlers finally matched, there's a whole
month where the handler and the dog are trained together
and the matching process takes a little while too. You know,
they don't just throw any dog with any person. That's
got to be a just like adopting any dog, it's
(25:56):
gotta be a good personality match for you. So, Chuck Water,
let's go back to dog training school. We got a
little excited. Okay, um right, So, like you said, a
lot of places will have their own intersections built simulated. Um.
The first step before they ever get to that point
is learning to walk like a guy dog in a
(26:18):
straight line, a little forward ahead of the handler and
slightly to the left, up and to the left. One,
and this is a big one. The guy dog has
to be taught to think of its of the world
in human size dog's eye view any longer, but human size,
because apparently they pick up pretty easily, like, well, there's
(26:40):
a garbage can. I need to make a wide arc
around the garbage cancer that the guy I'm leading doesn't
run into the garbage can. But what about that narrow
cravasse that I can fit through, no problem? But my
blind guy is a big fatty in the way he
can fit through their Look at this guy exactly, I'm
gonna have to go around the block because he can't
(27:00):
go down this alleyway. Right. A dog has to think
in terms of of its world like that, And that's
that's enormous to be able to train something like that,
and for the dog to be able to learn like that,
that's just really my hat is off, like over and
over again. I'm just not even putting it back on
for the rest of this episode. Uh yeah. The one
that really knocked me out was the headroom. Like the dog,
(27:23):
even though it's two and a half feet off the ground,
will be able to look up and say, this guy
might or lady might bang her head on this low
hanging beam. I shouldn't go into the shouldn't go in there.
You stay out of the sewer. So that's just amazing,
Like the dog has to look up and know how
tall the owner is and gauge how low that beam is. Unreal.
(27:48):
That matched again with the most spectacular thing in the world,
selective disobedience, um stopping at all curbs, all stairs, um
learning all of the commands, Uh, go to the right,
go to the left, forward you mean? And I watched
Short Circule last night holds up pretty well. Um, except
(28:09):
that just as crappy as it was exactly the Fisher
Stevens character. The Indian programmer is so racist contests because
it's a white guy doing like the worst Indian impression
Acky Rooney and and what's it called? I have no
idea breakfast at Tippany's. He played the Mr Moto or
(28:30):
whatever the Chinese. Yeah, oh, I have to watch that
very famous racist portrayal. But anyway, like Johnny, they couldn't
get Johnny five to to come for Ali Shed. He
couldn't until she stumbled upon Forward. She's like, come here,
come this way walk and he was just standing there
and she's like forward and he's like, oh, forward goes forward.
So guy dogs and sentient robots, you have to stay
(28:53):
forward from the eighties, all right. So we said before
of the puppies are weeded out off the top. Out
of those puppies who go to school, about fifty of
those are kicked out of school. And then finally, once
those remaining are in school, only about those graduate. So
(29:14):
they really weed out. To say, out of four hundred
dogs that go through puppy training, you've got like a
hundred and forty can eventually graduate and go on to
be matched with a handler. Um. And you know, there
there are a few things that will weed a dog out,
even if they're pretty good. If they're like aggressive towards
cats or something you know, that'll weed them out, so
(29:34):
they really get the cream of the crop. Drug problems gone.
They don't want any drug abusers in there, so they
get the cream of the crop. At the end, make
sure they're compatible with their handler, train the handler with
the people, and then boom, you've got a match made
in heaven. Yeah. In the article, Tom Harris says, like,
if you're if you're taking a first time handler, somebody
(29:58):
who hasn't had a guy dog before. Um, by the
time the handler comes in and you're putting it together
with the dog, now you're basically in people training mode.
Your guide dogs already trained. The process is training the
handler in the commands that that the dog already knows, um,
training the handler how to walk and and basically taking
(30:19):
these this person and this dog and teaching them how
to work as a team. Yeah. And the dog has
you know, this is their new master. They've had their
instructor for six months or more. So it takes a
little while to adjust to this fact that hey, this
is my new my new alpha dog. Yeah, and usually
it takes I think on average about a month. That's
about the time that set aside um. And so these
(30:43):
nonprofit guide dog schools have like facilities for blind people
to come live while they're spending a month learning how
to work with their guide dog. Yeah, some of them
have dorms. That's pretty cool. That's very cool. And again
we should say all of this is free. The nonprofit
group is shouldering all of the financial burden of puppy rasors. Um.
(31:07):
They're given a stipend for food, All bills are paid
by them the guide dog school. Um. They everything, everything
that has to do with the training and the raising
of these dogs is paid for um by these nonprofit groups.
So amazing. If you're looking for a place to leave
an inheritance, you could do worse than a guide dog school.
(31:30):
That Josh is a one dog school. Right. I'll give
you my text information if you email me directly. UM.
So if you want to be an instructor, it's gonna
vary depending on what school you're gonna try and go to,
but generally you have to have two to three years
UM experience as an apprentice supervised apprentice UH, and then
(31:51):
different states have certification processes. Um. You're probably a college graduate. Um.
Even though the job doesn't pay, it's still really hard
to get this job. People want to do this, so
it's it's wait listed a lot of times, not a
lot of openings, and it's a tough job to get.
It's very demanding physically and emotionally, and it's a real
(32:13):
challenge as a trainer, but super rewarding. What don't you think?
And if you are interested in becoming a master trainer,
from what I understand, the best route to take is
to start by being a puppy razor, work your way
up to apprentice trainer and then to master trainer. And
who knows, you may just feel like topping out at
um puppy raiser. Anybody can do it. Violent application have
(32:36):
to be, you know, pass of course it has to.
I would imagine you. I don't see how you could
have a job like a regular it's probably yeah, because
I mean, if you're exposing a dog to five new
things a week, Yeah, I guess you could balance the
two if it was like my work and this puppy. Yeah.
(32:56):
But even still, I don't know. I would think you'd
probably get bumped off a lot. And they're screening you
too to make sure you're like a super awesome person, right,
and you're not like I'm gonna explose them to the
back of my hand. You have like stains on the
sleeveless undershirt that you wore to that puppy raising application meeting.
(33:18):
Give me like four of them puppies. I'll train them good.
They may pass you by. Yeah. Yeah, so uh yeah,
anybody can do it, I guess, is what we're trying
to say almost to anybody. Yeah, and I don't I
don't know if they how heavily they screen as far
as like if you have kids, or you can have
other dogs, even other puppies, but your puppy has to
be I think seven months old. Yeah, And I guess
(33:39):
the whole point is they have to deal with those
distractions right anyway, bad thing. That's exactly what the mind
thought processes behind that. Uh. And like we said, they
retire generally eight to ten years old, um, although that
doesn't mean they're like old and feeble. That just means
it's probably time to get a new guide dog. Right.
(33:59):
They are sharp mentally typically, um, but they're starting to
slow down a little bit and they have to be
able to keep pace with their their handlers. So yeah,
I think about eight to ten is the usual age
that they're retired. Yeah, and like you said, they'll offer
it to the handler. If the handlers like, yeah, I
can handle like keeping this dog and still get my
new guy dog, then great. If not, they may offer
(34:19):
to the original puppy raiser, or you might be lucky enough.
It's another waitless deal because people want to adopt retired
guy dogs because they're pretty much the best and you
may not have as much time with them, but it's
you're providing them with Like it's almost like, you know,
taking in an old person and giving them something great
in their twilight years, right, like just letting them whip
(34:43):
cream right out of the can in time they want
kind of thing, whoop wherever you want. They're like, dude,
what's wrong with you? Poop into my hand? The dog
just seeds are crazy. It's like I remember I used
to work, Yeah, asked me to do? I love that
blind guy so much more? Did you? I can't even
(35:05):
mention it on this, I think, all right, all right, Uh,
you got anything else about guide dogs? This was a
little wackier than I thought it was gonna be. Okay, Well,
if you want to learn all about guide dogs, you
can type guide dogs into the search bar at how
Stuff works dot com. And since I said switch bar,
it's time for friends a message break hit the jingle. Uh, now, Chuck,
(35:31):
it's time for listener mail. That's right, and this is
dog centric. It just worked out that way. Uh. This
is from an e R doctor whose passion is animal
rescue and her name is Jane M. Gene Ab j
e n a B. I never heard that j e
n a B. Yeah, Jeanette. Uh so, Jane says, I
(35:53):
have a charity knitting site, guys, where I donate of
the proceeds from selling my hand into items to an
animal rescue in your neck of the woods. Actually, Angels
among Us pet rescue in Alpharetta, Georgia. Do you remember them? Yeah? Well,
how do I know that name? In either may be
like the can dogs detect like death? Or can dogs
(36:15):
tell when you're gonna die? Or can dogs detect illness?
Remember the chihuahua that could detect breast cancer? And um,
I feel like we talked about that organization in that episode.
I think you're right. So Angels among Us in Alpharetta
they rescued thousands of dogs and cats from kill shelters
right before being euthanized and found them loving homes. Last year,
(36:38):
my knitting site donated five thousand dollars to their cause,
and this year my goal is six thousand dollars. And
this is like she's just knitting, selling this stuff and
given all the money away. Knitting, knitting, knitting. A few
days ago, I lost my fifteen year old rescue girl, Rica,
Japanese for a beautiful girl. I rescued her when she
(36:58):
was eight weeks old and she was with me through marriage, divorce,
medical school, residency, and first four years of practice. She
moved with me from Denver to Tulsa, to Kansas City,
to Grand Junction, Colorado, to Mendesito, California, and back to Denver.
Her loss has broken my heart, but it has also
inspired me to work even harder to accomplish my goal
(37:18):
for other homeless animals, including asking for help spreading the words. Guys,
I would love it uh to make you both some
hand knitted hats for the winner if you think you'd
enjoy them. The links to my page on Facebook and
too Angels among Us or below you can see pictures
of the hats, baby hats, dog sweaters, all kinds of
things I can knit. UM, thanks for your consideration but
(37:40):
more than anything, thanks for a fantastic podcast that keeps
me entertained and educated. Uh So, this is from Jane
genab m d, owner of Jane's Creations, and we would
like to challenge people to go out and buy one
of her knitted gifts because that money is going to
go to Angels among Us Pet Rescue. That is so cool.
So go to our Facebook page um Facebook dot com
(38:02):
slash Jane's Creations j A. N. E. S. Creations of Denver, Colorado,
or just check out Angels among Us Pet Rescue at
Facebook dot com slash Angels Rescue. And uh, let's help
her reach that goal of six thousand bucks because that's
pretty awesome. Let's do it. Let's make it an official
s y s K thing. And hey, you know what,
(38:25):
Jerry adopted her cute little dog, Tooley from Angels among
Us going with the drum com Yeah, doing that washed
out of God dogs. Yeah, the tweaker but yes, so
we have a personal connection to and um, let's let's
do it, Chuck. Let's make it an official s y
s K thing to raise some money for this. Yeah,
so go to Facebook dot com slash Jaane's Creations and
(38:46):
uh Ja dot Cars, corresponding with her own email, I
was very sad to hear about Rica, but she's got
other animals because she's an animal crazy person just like me.
It's nice. Animal crazy people are the best crazy people around. Agreed. Uh,
if you want us to help try to raise some
money for a very worthy cause via you get in
(39:08):
touch at this, We're gonna have to check you out,
make sure you're legit, make sure you're not, you know,
making money off of other people's good will. Ye tacky,
And we get a lot of these so unfortunately can't
like get everyone on the air, but we do our best.
We try. UM. You can get in touch with us
via Twitter at s y SK podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
(39:29):
You can send us an email directly to Stuff podcast
at Discovery dot com. And you can join us on
our website, which is pretty awesome. It's called Stuff you
Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com.
(39:55):
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