If It Was Easy, Every Dog Could Do It

Today’s topic is career change. Under the theory of “the more you know, the more you understand”, I hope that giving you a little background information will help ease the pain if your pup is career changed.

The are two main reasons a dog might be career changed: medical and soundness. Let’s take a look at each of these.

Medical: This one is pretty straightforward. If there is a medical reason that would adversely affect the dog’s life as a guide dog, he is career changed. This includes big stuff like dysplasia and seizures, down to seemingly simple stuff like chronic ear or skin infections.

Soundness: You will hear this term a lot in relation to a dog’s potential for guide work. I’ve borrowed a definition from science and modified it slightly; I think it is the perfect definition of soundness:

Soundness is the ability of a dog to maintain equilibrium in a variable environment.

So a “sound” dog will be able to maintain his composure and his
focus and work effectively as a guide dog, no matter what might be going on around him. If he is worried about the traffic or other dogs or all those strange people or that big scary pile of trash on the corner, he can’t be an effective guide dog.

Now you’re probably thinking “But my dog was never bothered by (fill in the blank) while I had him! What happened? What did those trainers do to him?”

Well, here’s what happened. We tried to make him a guide dog. And once the responsibility of what that means kicked in, the dog either developed issues he never had with the raiser or issues that weren’t a big problem came into full blossom.

From the dog’s perspective, there is a huge difference between walking down the sidewalk as a puppy in training and being a working guide dog. A puppy in training has relatively few responsibilities – stay on the left side, slightly ahead; don’t sniff or chase; don’t greet dogs or people. In contrast, a working guide dog must do all that PLUS avoid obstacles, stop at curbs, make decisions and problem solve. The responsibility and focus required to do that increases tremendously. Some dogs love it. They thrive on the responsibility and love that they now have a job. But some dogs can’t or won’t handle the responsibility and stress. And this is what manifests as a soundness issue. Add the responsibility of guide work and the dog can’t maintain his equilibrium in all environments.

The bottom line with any soundness related career change is that most likely it was the stress of having the responsibility of guide work that brought it out. And that is something that you are never going to see in the puppy home because it is impossible to duplicate the stress of guide work, nor would we want to try with our puppies. The best you can do is follow the protocols and socialize your dog as much as possible. Give him the best chance for success. The rest is up to him.