The Oregonian has an article about the ongoing problem of guide dogs for the blind & disabled still receiving electric shocks from the light rail tracks. Although the shock isn’t that powerful, it does amount to a “really big shock of static electricity.”
Now, guide dogs are put through rigorous training to become the appropriate pets to help those blind & disabled. I would think a little shock here and there might confuse them a little… but I’m not 100% sure. The article states that there have been zero lasting effects from these shocks to the dogs.
Does anyone have experience about how guide dogs are trained? And if so, what are the chances that a “really big shock of static electricity” would do some permanent damage? My fiancee’s family has some experience with training guide dogs… so perhaps I’ll try to get her to comment.
3 comments ↓
I have a guide / combinational dog in which I taught myself. Been teaching for over 25 years and this is my fourth dog.
My teachings are of a different method with some of the schools as they teach the traditional method. (negative punishment) I use OC with positive re-enforcement! However no matter as to which method is taught, these shocks could make ones service animal shut down totally due to stress, refuse to work the area, bolt causing injury to both of them, etc. They could think that it’s a negative punishment and therefore wouldn’t proceed even if you try to say forward.
I know people say that oh a little shock wouldn’t hurt them. Well unless they have had that type of shock and are in the minds of the dogs they cannot actually state that as facts just an opinion. I have been shocked though didn’t kill me but dang it it hurt! Numbness and tingling isn’t a normal thing for either a human or a animal!
As far as lasting results goes if a dog becomes stressed out over that area then they are not doing their job correctly. In other words if they refuse walking the area and that’s the only suppose to be a safe place for their partner then what happens. Therefore then we have to reshape their behaviour if possible back to where everything is OK. Sometimes it’s impossible and henceforth our dogs would have to retire prematurely, all due to a situation that wasn’t the dogs fault nor their partner.
So maybe the hurt factour may not be extremely high as in a physical factour (though one cannot say foresure), but in a more of a stressful factour this issue hurts both the trained dog and the person with the disability. The training as you know is intense and it’s not an overnight type of thing it takes several years and these dogs goes through many temperament evaluations to make sure they have the right temperament. Then bang being shocked that isn’t normal for them to feel such a thing. Majour issue even if they want to down play it! I feel if only one out of 5 has to retire because of safety issues then that is one too many!
@ on call - awesome comment and totally agree
Thanks! I just feel that nobody could say that a dog cannot feel a shock that maybe a different feeling then we feel in which would cause some fear issues.
I had one of my dogs afraid of an elevator (in training) due to some goofball that jumped up and down in it. This making such a vibe that I could only imagine how my dog felt especially I didn’t like the feeling myself. Like an earthquake to them maybe. It took a very long time for me to work him out of this fear but eventually I was lucky I was able to reshape his behaviour other wise I would have had to retire him.
Leave a Comment