With deft training and intelligence, some dogs make the grade to guide people
November 07, 2006
by Deb Wood
Michael Hingson was in his office on the 78th floor in Tower One of the World Trade Center when the plane hit.
"People were screaming; I said to calm down," says Hingson, who managed the office of a computer company. "I knew we had time to get out of the building."
Hingson said he had information that no one else in his office had: His guide dog, Roselle, was calm and unafraid. If the building was about to collapse, he knew she'd behave differently.
He directed the evacuation of his office just like in the fire drills that had been conducted through the years. It was a long walk down those 78 floors.
At floor 30, they met firefighters coming up. "They asked if I needed help. I told them I didn't," he says. Some of the firefighters stopped to pet the pretty yellow Labrador. "Roselle gave them kisses. Then they were gone. It was the last unconditional love they ever got."
It took an agonizing hour to get out of the building.
Then the danger really started. Hingson and Roselle, along with a co-worker, were headed to the co-worker's car -- parked right by Tower Two. "A police officer yelled, 'It's coming down!' " The noise sounded like a cross between a freight train and a waterfall. "We were about 100 yards away, and the building was 400 yards tall," Hingson says.
He told his dog to "hop up" -- which means go fast. The two of them raced away from the collapsing tower, and then the engulfing dust. They ran alongside a building, until Hingson could tell from the echoes of his footsteps there was an opening. He told his dog to turn.
Roselle refused.
Carefully, Hingson felt his way with his foot. They were at the top of a long flight of stairs. Roselle had warned him to step carefully. They made their way down the stairs into a subway station, and eventually found their way to the safety of home.
"Roselle saved my life. I couldn't have run from that falling tower without her," Hingson says.
Guide dogs such as Roselle change the lives of their visually impaired partners in large ways and small every day. Last Friday, Guide Dogs for the Blind held its annual luncheon in Portland to celebrate its Oregon operations. (The organization has campuses in Boring and in San Rafael, Calif.) Hingson, who now lives in California and is the national public affairs director for the organization, was the keynote speaker for the event. The Oregonians who raise and train these dogs are at the vanguard of the art and science of guide dogs. I spoke with them about what it takes to make a dog such as Roselle.
Bred for success: Even at 2 months of age, these dogs are different. Yes, there is puppy breath and a wagging tail. But there is gravitas, a calm intelligence that is decidedly different from the average puppy. The dogs are bred and born at Guide Dogs for the Blind's San Rafael headquarters. About 80 percent of the dogs used by the organization are Labradors, and another 10 percent are Labrador-golden retriever crosses. "The Labrador retriever is the heart of guide dog work. They are so accepting of life, and so darn adaptable," says Michele Pouliot, director of research and development.
The remaining 10 percent are mostly golden retrievers and German shepherds. There is also a smattering of other breeds, including standard poodles, smooth collies and Australian shepherds, provided by breeders who identify particular dogs as good candidates for this kind of work. Guide Dogs has also begun a program to find shelter dogs to train as guide dogs.
Because the work is so demanding physically and emotionally, the rate of success in completing all the steps to become a guide dog is vastly higher in the dogs that have been specifically bred to do the work.
"When we test the shelter dogs, we find maybe one out of 25 to put into training," Pouliot says.
Raised with love: Puppies need to be puppies. Dogs that will live in people's homes and guide them through streets from Manhattan, N.Y., to Manhattan, Kan., need to be exposed to families, cars, cats and fun.
That's where an army of volunteer puppy raisers come in. At age 2 months, puppies leave the San Rafael facility to spend their puppyhoods in people's homes. About 200 puppies are being raised in Oregon and Washington. Volunteers teach puppies housebreaking skills, basic obedience (sit, lie down, don't jump on humans and walking on a loose leash).
"People often say, 'I love dogs too much. I couldn't give one up after raising it,' " says Cathie Laber, canine community programs field representative. "I tell them it takes a person who loves a dog a whole bunch to raise the dog for someone else." Volunteers can be as young as 9 (with parental supervision) and range up in age to retirees.
"It's addictive," Laber says. Some Oregon puppy-raisers have helped more than a dozen dogs get a good start on life.
New insights into training: At age 14 to 18 months, the dogs go to the Boring campus for their guide dog training and pairing with their lifetime partners.
Remember when Hingson told Roselle to turn into the opening in the building and she refused? That's called "intelligent disobedience" and it's a startling concept. A guide dog is supposed to always follow the handler's orders, no matter what -- except when that command will endanger the handler. Then the dog has to refuse.
That's not an easy concept for any dog to learn, even one bred for brains.
After the dog is trained the basics of leading a person, the trainers put an obvious obstacle in the way. When the dog hesitates for just a split second, the dog is rewarded with the sound of a "click" (which means "you're right!") and a treat. In time, the obstacle gets less obvious, such as a limb at the handler's eye level. The dog learns that part of a fun job is watching out for the handler.
Giving a dog food reward may be old hat for pet owners, but it's been taboo in guide dog circles for generations of trainers. Guide Dogs for the Blind -- and Pouliot, its Oregon-based research director -- have been pioneers in finding that these techniques are effective in working dogs.
The organization has used clicker training and food rewards for just the last five years. The theory always was that these dogs had to be taught to totally ignore all food. Turn a Labrador's tummy on, the theory went, and you were in trouble. The opposite is true: When the dogs learned that they got food rewards for good behavior -- and all food rewards only came from the handler and never from anyone else -- the dogs learned to pay even better attention.
In recent years, the success rate for dogs in training went from about 50 percent to 78 percent. Much of that increased success rate is attributable to the new training techniques.
After about four to five months of training, the dogs are paired with their visually impaired partners, and 28 days of intensive training together creates a team.
The teamwork between dog and human allow the blind person a freedom of movement that turns blindness into a mere nuisance, Michael Hingson says. He and Roselle travel the globe to tell people it's so. Watch the two of them together, and you can see this team is changing the world one speech -- and one tail wag -- at a time.
The Oregonian
Oregonian pet columnist Deborah Wood is the author of 10 books, including "Help for Your Shy Dog." You can reach her by e-mail at TaoBowwow@aol.com; by mail at Deborah Wood/Pet Talk, The Oregonian, 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201; fax, 503-294-7691; or phone, 503-221-8416.
