This post is due to a couple factors: (1.) I’ve been getting a not small number of requests to read what I’ve been writing for my Nano; and, (2.) It (sort of) answers a rather often received question of mine: “Which breed is the best suited guide dog?”
It should be noted that this has not been edited, so it may well make little sense and contain some atrocious grammatical errors. Even still, I hope you enjoy.
Having worked with a Labrador retriever previously and currently working with a German shepherd, I often am queried about whether one breed is superior to the other as a guide dog. I don’t subscribe to the belief that there is a “perfect breed” of guide dog anymore than there is such a thing as perfection within anything else. Dogs are very different from one another, just as one individual person is different from other people. This is no different for guide dogs and their potential handlers. I do think that due to the nature of certain breeds some people will find a preference among them; for my own sake, I readily admit that I find the GSD to be a particularly good match in terms of breed for what I expect in a guide dog. Not that I have any abhorrence to a Labrador. Dolly would most certainly take great offense at such a statement and I can’t deny that she was an excellent guide dog to work with.
A discovery I made rather early into my research about guide dogs was there was somewhat of a rumor that German shepherds were the “best” working breed. A lot of the opinions that supported this belief aren’t entirely false, but in my very humble and admittedly incredibly biased opinion, GSDs are absolutely not the dog for everyone. I think this is why labs are so often placed as guide dogs because as a breed they are rather adaptable and can thus easily satisfy the needs of a greater number of blind persons. That isn’t to say, though, that they are any more or less “perfect” of a guide dog.
There are many differences I’ve discovered about the two breeds I’ve worked with. Some of these are especially relevant to guide work, while others are just quirky personality traits, and yet others may be solely inherent to my specific guide dogs. Any of these, however, may not translate to another person as anything worthy of notation, so I can’t speak for all owners of either breed, including guide dog handlers.
One of the first differences between the two breeds that I noticed is how they deal with boredom and/or stress: Labradors are constantly sniffing things, while shepherds whine. Frankly, I find both traits equally annoying. The whining shepherd however is probably more irritating when out in public since passersby are probably going to be more aware of that and subsequently jump to some inconvenient conclusion. I’ve found that both of these things also tend to occur when the dog was “avoiding” something, i.e., pain or the possibility of a harsh correction, kind of like nervous fidgeting habit. In Yara’s case, she’s also known to whine when she’s waiting for something; for instance, in the mornings while I prepare for work, knowing that eventually we’re leaving she will sit by the front door and whine continuously.
However, I’ve found that as frustrating as the whining can be, the sniffing can prove to be the more difficult to deal with while working in harness. By its very nature, sniffing is a distraction when working. The dog is paying more attention to whatever it is that she has found to smell rather than actively guide. Dolly had a very pronounced issue with this during our initial training because of her sore wart-covered feet, it became such an issue that it was to the point that we could hardly walk a few steps before her nose was glued to the ground. It was a great relief that this was the most extreme showcase of this behavior in all of the years that I worked with her, but it was certainly not the sole instance of it occurring. Of the two it appears the whining is the easier t cease in terms of getting the dog back on the job; in fact, I can’t recall a time that my shepherd, or another I’ve witnessed, has ever whined when actively working.
As much of a chore dealing with the sniffing was, I would say the most difficult aspect of working with a Labrador was dealing with the solicitous behavior they posses. Labs just love, well, everyone and they make no secret of this. Even though we had a very strong bond and Dolly did not enjoy being separated from me, she would take any opportunity to schmooze someone for attention. I used to say, tongue firmly in cheek, that it was because she was very much aware that she was an attractive girl and enjoyed the associated attention that came with it. For the most part I never found this to be an obstacle that was especially difficult to overcome and get her back on task. And it wasn’t until I started working with Yara that I really began to realize that this really was a somewhat breed specific issue. In her own way, Yara is also quite solicitous, but as a general rule shepherds are known to bond very strongly with only one person. Because of this, even when she is working her canine magic on others, I have found that I never have any real trouble pulling her attention back to me.
Correcting this negative behavior, however, has been the one thing I’ve received the most public objection to. I think this is because in many cases when the dogs have been soliciting others for attention, the person in turn has either encouraged it or initiated it in the first place. Of course, in terms of the guide dogs behavior the point is that they were displaying unwanted behavior and not so much what the cause of this was due to. But nearly every time I’ve corrected a dog in these situations, the person responds with an apologetic, “It’s my fault.” When I have the time, I usually take it to explain the nature of why the dog was in the wrong and educate the person on the faux paus of distracting a working animal.
One of the reasons I believe that a working shepherd prone to solicitous behavior is less of a hardship for a handler is because of the “work ethic” of the breed. As a whole GSDs approach basically everything in life with an intense focus that allows little to dissuade them from the task at hand. Obviously that isn’t to say they are incapable of being distracted or that they never will be, but rather that when they have had their attention pulled away from what they should be doing it does not take as much effort to get them back onto the proper task. In contrast, other breeds in general can sometimes prove quite a chore to get control of when their attention has waivered.
This focused attitude that German shepherds possess is what I believe has perpetuated the rumor among handlers that the breed is the “best” working breed. When Yara is intent on a task, there is not much that she will allow to pull her away from her work. This has been best showcased by my time spent with puppy raiser friends of mine whose guide dog puppies will do their utmost to initiate playtime with Yara while she’s actively guiding me or even lying quietly under a table in harness. I am particularly fond of a photograph that one friend managed of her puppy and Yara under a table at a local restaurant, in the photo the puppy is on her back swatting Yara in the face with her front paws and Yara is doing her best to move as far from the puppy as possible with a look of utter aggravation plastered on her fact. Of course one would expect all guide dogs to be as professional, but I do find that in my own observations as a whole that GSDs are the more apt to ignore any stimuli in favor of performing their job duties.
I had a long history with Dolly of fighting her about snatching food off the ground. My father nicknamed her The Hover because she was constantly patrolling the kitchen floor for crumbs. It was the big distraction for her when she was working and there were few days in my life I wasn’t showing my hand down her throat trying to get her to give up some prize she’d discovered on the ground. On the other hand, Yara is about the most finicky animal I’ve ever met. Not only will she not eat one mouthful more passed being full, she won’t touch anything dropped on the floor. An amusing facet of this is that she will eat things she drops, but even if that same thing is dropped by someone else she will ignore it.
I actually have a bunch more to say on the subject, but that was where I stopped whatever day I wrote that and then I just started writing another whole portion of the novel. When I have the inclination and time, I’ll finish it up and add it here. (And maybe I’ll actually edit it, too!)
