Since they saw mainstream adoption in the early 20th century, guide dogs have changed the navigational landscape for many people who are blind or low vision and served as a positive symbol of independence to society at large. To celebrate this National Guide Dog Month, I wanted to share some of my personal journey working with guide dogs over the past 12 years. Even though everyone's reasoning for choosing to partner with a guide dog is different, it has been an incredible experience for me personally, and I hope my insights might help someone else considering the same decision.
In case anyone is unfamiliar exactly how a guide dog works, I wanted to define what the dog can and cannot do. If a cane serves as an obstacle detector for someone who is blind or has low vision, a guide dog serves as an obstacle avoider. When you travel with a guide dog, the dog will recognize any given obstacle as you walk and guide you around it, sometimes without you even knowing there was an obstacle in the first place. Guide dogs can also be trained to recognize specific classes of objects such as chairs, light poles, counters, doors, etc.; however, a guide dog can only take you directly to something in its line of sight, you can't ask it to take you home or to your office and have the dog make the navigation choices for you.
I first considered partnering with a guide dog part way through my first year of college. In particular, I found that campus was full of unexpected obstacles and crowds that made using a cane frustrating personally. I don't know how many times I sent a wet floor sign flying across a hall after hitting it with my cane. For that reason, the obstacle avoiding abilities of a guide dog seemed invaluable to me. I also worked closely with a blind colleague who had her own guide dog partner; seeing their efficiency while traveling but also their partnership in general was definitely a deciding factor in my decision. When deciding where to attend for my dog, I did as much research as I could. Though it is not administered every year, the GDUI (Guide Dog Users, Inc.) Guide Dog School Survey was an invaluable tool for me. The survey is incredibly detailed with near anything you could want to know about a number of guide dog schools in the United States. Based on my colleague's partnership with her own dog and its behavior, as well as what I discovered through research, I ultimately decided to attend Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) and have received two absolutely fantastic guides from them. For this reason, I believe seriously researching the schools available to you is vitally important to having a good outcome; I know several others personally who have had a similar experience with their guides at other schools across the U.S.
It's difficult to put into words the difference you experience when traveling with a guide dog. For me, it feels like I am riding a bike everywhere I go. The difference in speed and general confidence is freeing especially since you generally don't have to constantly think about obstacles in your path and can focus on navigation or just enjoy walking for its own sake. As much as the upgrade in travel quality is a major reason to consider a guide dog, I think the bond you share with your dog can't be understated. Being sure you and your guide dog are able to bond is a key point of guide dog training to the point where there are sessions, especially early on, where you simply spend time with your new guide to get to know them and begin bonding. You are not only putting your trust in these dogs to keep you safe when traveling, they are your constant companion 24-7. Even though I was unable to do much traveling at all during the beginning of the pandemic, I was so thankful to have my dog with me. She was a constant presence during the isolation of the pandemic. The fact that it is possible to form a deep bond like this is a major but less discussed benefit to working with a guide dog.
Considering the lifespan of most medium breed dogs, loss is inevitable when working with guide dogs. I received my first guide in 2011, a massive yellow lab named Joel. I was fortunate to work with him for 8 full years before he passed suddenly in 2019. Speaking frankly, it was probably one of the worst kinds of emotional pain I have ever experienced and I still miss him keenly to this day. When I first lost Joel, I thought I was not going to seek out another guide for a long time if not ever. After a month I decided to work with another, primarily after the experience of using a cane again in complex environments after using a dog for so long. Even so, I worried that I wouldn't be able to move on, or would be constantly comparing a new dog to, in my subjective opinion, the perfect guide. My new guide is nothing like the previous. Her name is Dunsmuir, and she is a tiny, excitable black lab- a complete opposite from Joel in every way. I was happy to discover that she has proven to be an equally fantastic guide and that our bond is equally as deep. There are several reasons one might choose to not use a guide dog-a cane's ease of use and unobtrusiveness, being someone who is not a fan of dogs, and any other myriad reasons to choose to stay with a cane, not wishing to experience the loss of a guide is a significant reason to abstain. That being said, in my personal experience, it is definitely possible to have enough room in your heart for more than one and to have an excellent experience with a guide that is not your first.
I would like to wish everyone a wonderful National Guide Dog Month, if you have one, and I hope you found this personal account helpful if you wanted to learn more about guides and potentially useful to you if you are considering partnering with a guide yourself.
