Assistance Dogs

Special training equips dogs to help people with disabilities

© Seeing Eye

Assistance dogs are specially trained to help people who are blind, deaf, or physically disabled. From the time they are adopted by puppy raising families or trainers until the time they are retired, their lives are devoted to the serious task of providing security and independence to a person with a disability. It's not always a specific breed that makes the best assistance dog. Instead, dogs are selected for the temperament and size that suits them for the job they'll have to do.

The first assistance dogs were developed in Germany in the 1920s as guide dogs for veterans who lost their sight during World War I. There are now three basic types of assistance dogs:

• Guide dogs
• Hearing dogs
• Service dogs

Guide Dogs

© Seeing Eye

Guide dogs help people who are blind or visually impaired navigate their community -- along busy city streets, on public transportation, through crowded aisles at the grocery store. In 1929, The Seeing Eye became the first US organization to breed and train guide dogs and match them with human handlers. Though training methods haven't changed much since The Seeing Eye's founding, the environment has -- increased traffic, quieter engines that are harder to hear. This has led to a longer training period to make sure the dogs are prepared for anything.

Hearing Dogs

© Dogs for the Deaf

Hearing dogs alert a person who is deaf or hearing-impaired to sounds like doorbells, smoke alarms and baby cries. The dogs can even be trained to alert to the name of their owner, making communication with others easier. The first hearing dogs were trained with the input of an audiologist (someone that helps people with hearing difficulties), the American Humane Association, and Roy Kabat who trained animals for movies. Working together, they came up with a successful training program and the non-profit organization Dogs for the Deaf was formally established in 1977 to train and place hearing dogs.

Service dogs

Service dogs help people who have physical disabilities. They can pull wheelchairs, open doors, retrieve dropped items or provide stability for someone who can't balance very well. Service dogs can also be trained to help people with seizure disorders or other medical problems. A leader in training assistance dogs is Canine Companions for Independence, established in 1975. The organization started with the simple question: can methods similar to those used to train guide dogs be used to train dogs to help people with physical disabilities? The answer was YES! Though the organization now trains hearing and guide dogs too, the cornerstone of their organization continues to be training service dogs.