The first time I worked a dog into a building was in 1994. It was some kind of grocery supermarket in San Rafael California. My dog made a bee-line for a display of pies and stopped.
When you work with dogs, it’s important to realize two things. First, they each have an individual personality. Though I don’t want to completely humanize them, dogs are definitely people too.
The second is that they are dogs. This may seem contrary, but pointing it out allows us to investigate our reactions to what dogs do, and examine why they do it.
A dog will, no matter how much training it’s had, always be a dog. That means that they never lose the instincts and motivations of dogs. My first grocery store experience highlights this. It’s possible that the dog had worked that store previously, and he was just working to where he had success. It’s also possible that he was just hungry, and those pies smelled the best of anything short of the butcher counter.
Yet we, as humans, try to anthropomorphize the dog. We put our own perspective into their bodies to try to understand motivations and instinct. Here’s a tip: Just because humans do a task one way doesn’t mean that way will make the most sense to a dog. Just as no two people are the same, the two species in question have deep differences that we still struggle to understand. Of course dogs, being long-term domesticated animals, don’t make this easy. They have adapted to show the behaviors that we expect.
This series of blog posts is supposed to be about a specific guide dog training experience, so I will set aside the psychology discussion. Instead, we’ll talk more about working in buildings.
The first significant work that a team performs is related to travel on the street. Block by block, intersection by intersection, they learn about each other’s methods, abilities, and technique. Think about that. Instead of working first in a comparatively safe environment (say, a building), the team kicks off with work that includes two-ton vehicles traveling at thirty miles-per-hour. Remember the previous discussion about obstacles? The next time you walk a city block, take a look at the different obstructions to your line of travel. Next, walk through a building. Are there more or less obstacles on the street? Four words: “Malls at Christmas time”.
But what about those cars? When you reach the corner, and prepare to cross the road, remember that the human in the guide team has previously used a cane or other mobility aid. This means that s/he is capable of managing traffic, walking in a relatively straight line, etc. Independent travel is a crucial pre-requisite to adding a guide dog as a mobility aid.
The standard city block is three-hundred feet. This gives ample space between intersections for the team to establish a line while coping with any obstructions. In addition, the team can work contiguous blocks without a turn, thus allowing staging of different handling tools.
The typical building doesn’t exist. Hallways may branch at any moment. An aisle is probably only thirty feet in length. There may not be an actual line to travel (think of a clothing boutique’s typical layout). And of course, there are a lot of distractions (pies) at the dog’s level. Buildings, to a dog, contain nothing but surprises that can impact guide performance.
To reduce risk to the team (not to mention other building occupants) some changes are implemented when a dog walks through a door. First, everything slows down. This reduces “closing time”, which means that an oncoming moving obstruction (person) will take longer to reach the team. There is no substitute for providing the dog and handler time to make a decision. Next, the handler will undoubtedly start using something called a moving turn.
In standard travel, a dog will be “halted” before making a turn. This is done most often at street corners, or when particular emphasis is needed to direct a dog in a particular direction. Once the team is stopped, the dog can assess where the new line of travel will be once the turn command is given. Again, time is on the team’s side.
A “moving turn” does not require the halt. In this case, the handler starts directing the dog into the turn before the desired opening is present. It allows the team to move more fluidly, but it requires good handling and environmental understanding to achieve. For example, if a handler wants to turn into aisle 6, s/he may start asking the dog to turn at the endcap between aisles 5 and 6. Any earlier and the dog is likely to turn down aisle 5. Later and there is probably not enough room to make the turn before the endcap between 6 and 7 becomes an obstruction. Timing and pace are everything, and the new team is simply not coordinated enough to pull off the maneuver with much hope of success.
The moving turn is important in buildings for a few reasons. First, it helps flow. The team continues to work without impeding travel, which can be handy in highly populated areas. It allows the dog to bear some more of the navigational load. Remember that the handler most likely can tell that their turn is coming, but not exactly where. It focuses the team on travel, while slowing pace. And finally, it opens the door to following another person, which is common in buildings, while preserving the integrity of the guide experience.
All of that is a really long way of saying that streets come before buildings. It could also be noted that one must navigate some level of street travel to reach a building, but we’ll leave our excuses behind now.
Once a handler has gotten a taste for building travel, s/he rarely wants to do anything else. Walking alone, with a cane, or even while heeling the dog in anything but the best known building environments pales in comparison. Suddenly the person can move with some confidence of not bumping into things. Doorways in seemingly continuous walls are findable with ease. The entire experience changes.
However, the handler, either new or retraining, has to build up to buildings. Instructors will emphasize that dogs should not be worked inside until expressly permitted. For those that have done this before, the intervening days between Dog Day and first being allowed to work inside can seem like an eternity, but it’s all for good reasons.
And then the second most glorious day of class…The day when building travel is introduced and teams are permitted to work inside. This typically happens after a short lecture and some practical experience in…a grocery store.
For this latest class experience, the building was a Fred Meyer on Thanksgiving afternoon. Yes, it was more busy than I expected. My dog walked right past the butcher counter and the bakery with no problems.
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