Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new team Toyota Corolla.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast on Josh,
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and we hope we sound correct. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Well, Jerry was looking at her
Speaker 1: putting the headphones up to her years, so like, she's
Speaker 1: not you paying attention to here. Basically, what you're saying
Speaker 1: is we have no quality control gong on it right now. Well,
Speaker 1: no we did, because Jerry had the headphones up to
Speaker 1: her years. Yeah, now we don't. She checks in. Occasionally
Speaker 1: she wakes up and says, yeah, yeah, yeah, what so Chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: how's it going. It's going great. How are you? I'm
Speaker 1: doing good? Good? Um? Huh do you look well? Thank
Speaker 1: you very much? Healthy, fit, well, happy, sun kissed, sun kissed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really good, um, Chuck. Have you ever seen a
Speaker 1: guide dog a guy dog? Guide? Oh? Yeah yeah, guide
Speaker 1: dogs them all the time. Do you know why they
Speaker 1: are also called seeing eye dogs are used to be
Speaker 1: uh well, because guide dogs specifically, unlike the general term
Speaker 1: service dogs, are to help guide around people who cannot see.
Speaker 1: That is a pretty nice story, but it's not entirely
Speaker 1: correct feeling. Seeing Eye dogs were actually UM part of
Speaker 1: a company called the Seeing Eye was the first American
Speaker 1: guide dog training company. UH. And it wasn't the Americans
Speaker 1: who came up with training guide dogs. It was actually
Speaker 1: the Germans UH. In Potstam, Germany, the first UM guide
Speaker 1: dog training Academy was set up to help veterans that
Speaker 1: have been blinded in World War One. UM and it
Speaker 1: was successful. It didn't really take off. UM. But a woman,
Speaker 1: an American woman living in Switzerland. Her name was Dorothy
Speaker 1: Harris Eustace. She was very wealthy American, heard about this
Speaker 1: when visited the school and said, this is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: Came back, waited a few years before she got around
Speaker 1: to writing an article and it was published in the
Speaker 1: Saturday Evening Post. And a young uh blind whipper snapper
Speaker 1: named UM Norman Rockwell, No, his name was Morris Frank.
Speaker 1: He heard about it and he got in touch with
Speaker 1: Mrs Eustace and said, I would like one of these dogs.
Speaker 1: Can you help me out? He said? She said, not
Speaker 1: only will I help you out, I'm gonna fly you
Speaker 1: to pot Stamp to Switzerland. Actually you're going to be
Speaker 1: trained with a dog and we give you ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to go start the first school in America. So
Speaker 1: Morris Frank took the took her up on it, took
Speaker 1: the ten thousand dollars and started in Tennessee the Seeing
Speaker 1: Eye Dog School. So are you saying that Seeing Eye
Speaker 1: dogs are the Kleenex of the working service dog world.
Speaker 1: That's very apt. It's actually a brand name. Interesting. I
Speaker 1: never knew that to see. He asked how I like this,
Speaker 1: and I said, nothing really surprised me. It was a
Speaker 1: good article, but I wasn't surprised. And here you go,
Speaker 1: surprising me right off the bat. Thanks. All right, guy dogs,
Speaker 1: let's get to it. Eight. Yeah, it's a pretty straightforward stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's neat to know the details of things. Like
Speaker 1: first of all, if you ever see a guy dog,
Speaker 1: it's actually working and you should leave it alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's um in my house. It's difficult with Emily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're really not supposed to do that. I know, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't. But dude, she's like a five year old
Speaker 1: like she will. I have seen her fake like she's
Speaker 1: going to look for something and just brush up her
Speaker 1: hand against the dog's head, like in a store, like
Speaker 1: let me go look at the cereal and she'll just
Speaker 1: brush up and be like that didn't mean to bet
Speaker 1: your your guide dogs. She's like a frauder. She's like
Speaker 1: a frauderist for guy dogs. Yeah, basically is that people
Speaker 1: who rub up against yourself in public? Yeah, yeah, she
Speaker 1: can't help it, dude, when she sees a dog, she's
Speaker 1: like she just cannot not touch. So and it's understandable,
Speaker 1: especially with guide dogs. Why Emily would do that because
Speaker 1: it's like dogs and then five echelons up guide dogs, right,
Speaker 1: Not only are they dogs, which are great animals to
Speaker 1: begin with, but they're dogs that actually help not only
Speaker 1: just regular people, but people who can't see. So it's
Speaker 1: like you just want to pet them and be like
Speaker 1: it's the greatest thing on the planet, and they look sad,
Speaker 1: which makes you want to pet him even more. But
Speaker 1: people they are not sad. They are working and they're
Speaker 1: delighted to be working. Because if they're not delighted to
Speaker 1: be working, they wouldn't be guide dogs. They wouldn't make
Speaker 1: it through the process. That's exactly right. So it's not
Speaker 1: to say that you can never um touch a guide dog.
Speaker 1: Normally you want to leave them alone. Just rub them
Speaker 1: gets to the story, right. But um, if you really
Speaker 1: can't resist the urge Emily, UM, you can ask the handler,
Speaker 1: the guy dog owner, the person who the guy dog
Speaker 1: is assisting, if you compet their dog that way, they
Speaker 1: can say not really, he's really concentrating now, or no,
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and pet them, and then the
Speaker 1: owner knows that now he needs to get the dog
Speaker 1: back into his concentration working mode after he's been petted. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's rule number one. Okay. Guy dogs are rule number two.
Speaker 1: Typically allowed anywhere the general public is allowed, because if
Speaker 1: they're not, then you're saying, oh no, only people who
Speaker 1: can see are allowed into these public areas, which is
Speaker 1: one of the best things about him and why you
Speaker 1: want you know, why Emily wants to rub up against them,
Speaker 1: because she's like, well, I'm in a library and there's
Speaker 1: a dog. This is a bonus, right, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a great library. Um. The thing is that since they're
Speaker 1: allowed anywhere and their dog, and because there's people like
Speaker 1: Emily walking around who wanted to pet them all the time,
Speaker 1: the dog, it's up to the dog rather than Emily
Speaker 1: to decide, like, let's keep things professional. Here, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to create any kind of ruckus or disturbance. So
Speaker 1: the dog has to be extraordinarily well trained, um to concentrate,
Speaker 1: and what it's concentrating on is a certain prescribed set
Speaker 1: of things, specifically how to take a direct route um,
Speaker 1: and to stay in front of and just to the
Speaker 1: left of the handler yep, at a steady pace. Yep.
Speaker 1: You don't want a dog that like runs some and
Speaker 1: then stops to smell and eat poop and then runs again. Uh.
Speaker 1: The biggest, I would say, probably easily the biggest thing
Speaker 1: a guy dog must do is have complete mastery of
Speaker 1: the intersection in the crosswalk. Yeah, that's really where I mean,
Speaker 1: stairs and cliffs and things like that are important, but
Speaker 1: the crosswalk in the intersection is when it comes down
Speaker 1: to brass tacks. That's the most important thing that a
Speaker 1: guy dog needs to know how to do perfectly right
Speaker 1: in the free time. The way that guy dog trainers
Speaker 1: have established. UM. The importance of this is the guy
Speaker 1: dogs are taught universally need to stop at every curb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's a good way to I mean, you should
Speaker 1: train your dog to do that anyway. I wass thinking
Speaker 1: if you can get your hands on a training manual
Speaker 1: for a guide dog. Just use that. You could use
Speaker 1: that for any dog and you have like a super
Speaker 1: terrific A one dog. Yeah, I bet you could. That
Speaker 1: sounds like a service Josh is a one dogs and
Speaker 1: fingering powder. Um. Yeah, that's a good point and that's
Speaker 1: a good way to train a dog anyway. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you don't want your dog pulling you into an intersection,
Speaker 1: even if you can see. Um. But back to guide dogs,
Speaker 1: that is the most important thing. They have to stop
Speaker 1: at every curb, sit and while they're sitting. And like
Speaker 1: I said, these aren't just service dogs, because there's other
Speaker 1: dogs if you have like epilepsy or if you're in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair. Sometimes these are specifically for the blind. Um.
Speaker 1: But they'll come to an intersection and they work together
Speaker 1: as a unit. It's um. The dog stops and the
Speaker 1: blind person listens. They listen for traffic and they listen
Speaker 1: for traffics stopping, and then they tell the dog all right,
Speaker 1: now we can go forward in in the intersection. But
Speaker 1: here's the cool thing, and this is I think the
Speaker 1: coolest thing in this article about guide dogs. The dog
Speaker 1: doesn't just say okay, let's go the dogs as well.
Speaker 1: You're saying it's okay, but you can't see, so why
Speaker 1: don't you let me decide for sure if it's okay
Speaker 1: if there's a car coming, Even if the handler says
Speaker 1: move forward, the dog won't do it. The dog will wait,
Speaker 1: wait until whatever hazard is coming is cleared, and then
Speaker 1: we'll follow the command. It's called selective disobedience. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: pretty spectacular. Yeah. When I lived in l A in
Speaker 1: my first apartment, I lived across from my I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was a dog training school or if
Speaker 1: it was just a school for the blind, but all
Speaker 1: the traffic lights around me made noises. Oh yeah, like wait,
Speaker 1: no it was that would be good. Actually it was
Speaker 1: just like these sounds, like these ticking sounds that they knew,
Speaker 1: they knew what it meant. Or Gore's even better. There's
Speaker 1: one's by Amy's in my house that say wait when
Speaker 1: you press the button, wait and then I'll say, um,
Speaker 1: what what street light is now red? And what street
Speaker 1: you can cross depending on where the intersection is. Is
Speaker 1: that just a new thing or is it near The
Speaker 1: voice sounds pretty futuristic. No, but is it tied to
Speaker 1: the blind or is it just yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: what it's for. Um, because yeah, it directs you, um
Speaker 1: verbally across what street you can take right wait wait,
Speaker 1: And it's funny because you can press the button a
Speaker 1: few times will be like wait wait, wait wait, that's
Speaker 1: kind of fun. I'm sure you've never done that though, right, Well,
Speaker 1: what else is there to do while you're waiting for
Speaker 1: a crosswalk light? Um? Today walk? That's right. You can
Speaker 1: get a ticket for that in Los Angeles, by the way,
Speaker 1: it's a way of life in New York. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: do it, no way. Um. Another thing the dog has
Speaker 1: to do is to know how to um bring the
Speaker 1: the handler to an elevator button instead of elevator buttons. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: stop its stairs at the bottom and the top until
Speaker 1: told what to do. UM, lie there quietly when the
Speaker 1: handlers sitting wherever the handler is. Yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1: Like like part of being a guy dog is you
Speaker 1: just have to just cut out all of the other
Speaker 1: distractions that would drive any other dog bonkers, um and
Speaker 1: just sit there. Because the first time a guy dog
Speaker 1: acts like a regular dog in a public setting, a
Speaker 1: guy dogs everywhere have a bad name. That's right, You
Speaker 1: know well, and that's why they look sad to me.
Speaker 1: Like what, I used to take Marta and there was
Speaker 1: a guy dog frequently on the way home, um with
Speaker 1: this lady and uh, the dog would just lay down
Speaker 1: under the you know seat on the subway and just
Speaker 1: look so sad. But I always had to tell myself,
Speaker 1: this dog is not sad. When that harness comes off,
Speaker 1: it's playtime. Were you saying that with like to you
Speaker 1: might have teared up. So um, Like we said, they
Speaker 1: work as a team. It's not the handler just giving
Speaker 1: orders and it's not the dog just carrying out orders.
Speaker 1: They have to work together, um because they the dog
Speaker 1: doesn't know where to go, that's the handler's job, and
Speaker 1: the handler doesn't know when to go or yeah, what
Speaker 1: obstacles are coming up? Exactly. Put the two together. You
Speaker 1: got a pretty great team, that's right. You have the
Speaker 1: makings of a fine sitcom. So um, like you said,
Speaker 1: after hours after they're working, when the harnesses on, the
Speaker 1: dogs at work, it's concentrating. It knows everything to do.
Speaker 1: When the harness is off, it's just like any other dog,
Speaker 1: it's belly rub time. Right. A guy dog is both um,
Speaker 1: a service dog and the family pet two. That's right.
Speaker 1: So really genuinely don't feel like bad for service animals
Speaker 1: when you see them out in public, Like they're treated
Speaker 1: just as well and even better than other dogs back
Speaker 1: at home. And from what I understand, they're really enjoying
Speaker 1: themselves because they're like concentrating, their stimulated, they're going places.
Speaker 1: They're just like sitting at home, you know, all day,
Speaker 1: waiting for you know, their owner to come home and
Speaker 1: let him out for a half hour on a leash. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of a lot of people who
Speaker 1: believe that guy dougs leave far more fulfilling lives than
Speaker 1: the average house dog. Yeah, well dogs, It depends on
Speaker 1: the breed, but in general, dogs have jobs, and if
Speaker 1: you have a poorly behaved dog, that means it's probably
Speaker 1: a breed that wants a job that doesn't have one,
Speaker 1: or you just got a lemon. Like one of our
Speaker 1: dogs is really bad. Lucy's terrible. She's thirteen and she's
Speaker 1: still bad. Well, she was red to be a card dealer.
Speaker 1: We haven't taken out of Vegas in a long time.
Speaker 1: She was. She is a catahoula though, and they're they're
Speaker 1: hurting dogs and she she needs a job. Basically, she's
Speaker 1: never had a job. So her job has been to
Speaker 1: poop in the house and to eat books and furniture
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Wait, what kind of job are
Speaker 1: they supposed to do? Well, the Catahoulas were herds, like
Speaker 1: she heard hers and things? Does she heard you guys
Speaker 1: around the house? Like? Does she try to make sure
Speaker 1: you're all in the same room at the same time?
Speaker 1: Or uh no? No? Um, all right, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about the process of schooling a guide dog. Um, they're
Speaker 1: usually free. They will pair people up there. They're generally
Speaker 1: nonprofits who run on donations. But yeah, if you wanted
Speaker 1: to feel even better about people like guide dogs schools,
Speaker 1: it's free. Yeah that you don't have to pay a
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars for your well trained guide dog. They
Speaker 1: will pair you as a person that can't see, with
Speaker 1: a great dog for no charge. In general, although there
Speaker 1: could be a lot of money in that. He started
Speaker 1: proprivate dogs. Yeah, sure you could get a free one,
Speaker 1: but if you want to really give one, you have
Speaker 1: to pay for it. Um. So these the schools are
Speaker 1: set up and pretty much handled the whole process from
Speaker 1: soup to nuts, which includes breeding them sometimes and if
Speaker 1: they're like really great guy dogs, they might go into
Speaker 1: a breeding program afterwards. I have the impression that most
Speaker 1: like major guide dog schools handled their own breeding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably so. UM. They arrange the puppy raising programs, which
Speaker 1: is where it all starts, which we'll get into in
Speaker 1: a minute. Uh. They evaluate these dogs along the way,
Speaker 1: they train them. Once they're ready, they train the instructors,
Speaker 1: they train the handlers, They match the dog with the handler,
Speaker 1: reevaluate them after a while, and eventually retire the dogs,
Speaker 1: which is very sad and happy, which we'll we'll get
Speaker 1: to that too, that's at the end. But you're talking
Speaker 1: Golden Retrievers, labs. German shepherds are generally who you're going
Speaker 1: to see because they're all whip smart and generally pretty nice, loyal, obedient,
Speaker 1: train very trainable and confident too. That's one of the
Speaker 1: a number one again qualities of UM a guide dog
Speaker 1: is self confidence. UM. And that self confidence is UM
Speaker 1: built up as a puppy. That's one of the main
Speaker 1: things in a guide dog in training or pre training,
Speaker 1: puppy guide dog raising person. Yeah, they who I think.
Speaker 1: Alicia Howyte wrote this she interviewed. Um, no, this is
Speaker 1: a Tom Harris joint. I wasn't. Okay, Tom interviewed someone
Speaker 1: at a place called Guiding Eyes for the Blind in
Speaker 1: New Yorktown Heights, New York. And we're gonna be referencing
Speaker 1: them a lot as far as or that's who we're
Speaker 1: talking about when we throw out some of these common stats, um,
Speaker 1: like of the original puppies aren't suitable for to even
Speaker 1: enter the program, Like they start weeding them out really early. Um,
Speaker 1: they sell them as pets if they're not you know,
Speaker 1: if they're part of that, or they may just not be.
Speaker 1: They may be okay for service doll, but not good
Speaker 1: for guide dogging, so they'll, um maybe send them to
Speaker 1: another organization that will help people like with epilepsy, you're
Speaker 1: in a wheelchair or something. Um. The ones that do
Speaker 1: make it though, the ones that are like, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: six week old puppy, and we can tell already that
Speaker 1: you are probably going to be worth a shot, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna send you into a training school pre training school.
Speaker 1: Puppy raising is what it's called with just regular people
Speaker 1: like you can go out and do this as if
Speaker 1: you have the time and you have the patients and
Speaker 1: you have the resources, you can actually get puppies to
Speaker 1: the point where a year later you will then turn
Speaker 1: them back over to a proper school a year to
Speaker 1: a year and a half depending Um. And along the way,
Speaker 1: you're you're going to be trained on how to raise
Speaker 1: a puppy according to the standards of the school. Um.
Speaker 1: They're not just gonna say here's a puppy, don't screw
Speaker 1: it up. Um. There's usually weekly monthly court early meetings
Speaker 1: with other puppy raisers where all the puppies get together
Speaker 1: to ensure their socialized update things to make sure everybody's
Speaker 1: on the same page with raising their puppies so that
Speaker 1: there's evaluations. Um. And uh, Like we said that, what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do is they're not training the puppies
Speaker 1: at all. The main point of puppy raising is to
Speaker 1: start to set up, um, how a puppy can become confident,
Speaker 1: make it feel good about itself. And I take that back.
Speaker 1: They are training themself in the basics sit, stay, lay down,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Nothing advanced, just good basic obedience
Speaker 1: exactly there. And then they're also getting the puppies used
Speaker 1: to the idea of training for extended periods of time
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. Um. And they're doing that by
Speaker 1: taking the dog all over the place, anywhere that they
Speaker 1: can get a dog into. They're going to take this
Speaker 1: dog to expose it to new, um, new experiences every week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and after um, a certain amount of time, they'll get
Speaker 1: their little co that says I'm a puppy dog in training.
Speaker 1: Very cute little situation there, and uh, that's when they
Speaker 1: can really take it anywhere they want to go. UM,
Speaker 1: As I understand it, not necessarily like well, by law, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: by law you can't. You're supposed to ask. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, it's like, yeah, but socialization is a
Speaker 1: big deal. Um. Like you said, they tried to expose
Speaker 1: puppies to at least five new experiences a week, so um,
Speaker 1: everything from other dogs being around, to being in a
Speaker 1: shopping mall to going to jim Boree and having screaming kids,
Speaker 1: you know, throwing their poop all over the place. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know. If I take a puppy to be
Speaker 1: trained to jim bree, it's probably that's probably like the
Speaker 1: proving ground. Yeah, yeah, they can ignore that, um. But
Speaker 1: basically what they want to do is develop a good
Speaker 1: relationship with a dog, which will eventually transfer to their handler.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about learning obedience, like just basic obedience. Um,
Speaker 1: all guy dogs are taught not with treats. And there's
Speaker 1: a very very good reason why you don't want to
Speaker 1: teach a dog with treats, because if you have a
Speaker 1: guy dog that's like food is a reward, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot about food. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: you could say I'm fixated on food boys. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you take that guy dog into like a dinner or Nathan's,
Speaker 1: that guy dog's gonna have some real problems concentrating. So
Speaker 1: you use praise and then correction through like just a
Speaker 1: tug on a leash. Yeah, that's typical, like Caesar Milan stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of those two. I saw one the other day
Speaker 1: where he was training a dude was scared of dogs.
Speaker 1: An adult, he had grown kids. He was like in
Speaker 1: his probably late forties, and he was still frightened of dogs.
Speaker 1: And it was h like every stupid episode of that show,
Speaker 1: very emotional. Wells that music is pretty man up right
Speaker 1: at the right time. Um, so wait, hold on, Chuck, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we should do a little public service for
Speaker 1: our listeners out there and teach them the whiz Bang,
Speaker 1: a one no fail method of house breaking a dog
Speaker 1: in as little as one day. All right, let's hear it.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to Yeah, I've had my mean
Speaker 1: my dog poops every day and eats it herself, so
Speaker 1: I've done a poor job. Luckily peace when it thunders.
Speaker 1: Do you have a thunder shirt for him? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: got We call it thunderbuddy. It helps a little bit.
Speaker 1: But if we're not home and it's thundering, he'll he'll pee.
Speaker 1: Do you give him sed it is or anything? No,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, I just clean up the pay alright.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you have a puppy, Yeah, they say
Speaker 1: you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true or not. But with a puppy
Speaker 1: it's easier. I think that should be you can't teach
Speaker 1: an old dog new tricks, Comma, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true or not, semi colon. With a puppy, it's easier.
Speaker 1: That should be the full adage. That's the a Ones logan.
Speaker 1: So you take you take your puppy outside once an
Speaker 1: hour pretty much and you take them to the same
Speaker 1: place outside and you wait, wait until they finally start
Speaker 1: to go, and when they go, you say, puppy's name
Speaker 1: insert it here, Uh, do your thing, yeah, or whatever
Speaker 1: you choose to say, and then you praise that dog
Speaker 1: like it just saved your life. And then the next
Speaker 1: time you take the dog out again, and you wait.
Speaker 1: You do that a couple of times, and then maybe
Speaker 1: by the third or fourth time, you take the dog
Speaker 1: out to the same place and you say, puppy, do
Speaker 1: your thing, and that dog will probably pier poop on
Speaker 1: command for the rest of its life. Yeah, I say,
Speaker 1: go potty, and it works still, especially when it's thundering,
Speaker 1: Go potty. He's like, dude, perfect. And again, the reason
Speaker 1: why you want a dog to that will only pier
Speaker 1: poop on command is because again, you can't have a
Speaker 1: guide dog pooping in public because people be like, well,
Speaker 1: what's we need to legislate guide dogs? Yeah, your dog
Speaker 1: dog pooping a library, Yeah exactly. This lady over here
Speaker 1: is rubbing against the dog while it's pooping. Yeah. Plus,
Speaker 1: you know you don't want your dog taking a big
Speaker 1: dump in front of Forever twenty one because little kids
Speaker 1: at them all will be turned off by that. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, puppies are evaluated um every few months,
Speaker 1: UM during training and UM eventually, like we said, at
Speaker 1: about the year a year and a half mark, the
Speaker 1: saddest day ever happens and you have to take that
Speaker 1: puppy that you raised and turned them over to a school. UM.
Speaker 1: And they did an interview with a lady who raised
Speaker 1: the dog named Sonar. Her name is Mary Kondo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like she does this a lot, and
Speaker 1: she had a really good attitude. She's like, here's so
Speaker 1: I'll look at it. Add three kids and I raised
Speaker 1: them and eventually sent them out into the world. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this with this dog. And they provide
Speaker 1: a service, and we don't look at it as losing
Speaker 1: this dog. We look at it as like we've given
Speaker 1: someone a gift of a well trained uh puppy and
Speaker 1: h a lot of people will get another one right
Speaker 1: after that and start all over again. Yeah. I think also,
Speaker 1: once you prove yourself as an able and capable UM
Speaker 1: guide dog puppy razor, like, they'll they'll keep coming back
Speaker 1: every time to ask you if you wanted to do
Speaker 1: it again. Yeah, And you may one day, actually maybe
Speaker 1: one day soon get that dog back if it gets
Speaker 1: kicked out of the program. Yeah, because, like you said
Speaker 1: right off, the bat aren't even aren't even trained as puppies. Um.
Speaker 1: Of the ones that go through puppy training and are
Speaker 1: brought back after twelve or eighteen months, fifty of those
Speaker 1: will just be like turned down. Yeah. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times they'll offer them back to the original puppy
Speaker 1: razor say hey, do you want this dog? Um, you failed,
Speaker 1: would you like the dog back as a token to
Speaker 1: commemorate your failure or are the sweetest thing? Ever? Perhaps
Speaker 1: when that dog retires you might get it back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Usually if the person who has the guy dog, ye
Speaker 1: the handler. The handler can't because they need another guy
Speaker 1: dog after that one retires. If they can't keep two dogs,
Speaker 1: keep the other one of the pet, then I think
Speaker 1: you have first shot if you raise it as a puppy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine like raising this puppy, giving away, and
Speaker 1: like ten years later getting it back Christian the Lion
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, you know that's right. Uh So, once
Speaker 1: your puppy has been raised and it goes to regular school, Um,
Speaker 1: they're gonna basically reinforce and train everything they've already learned
Speaker 1: and then introduced like all the serious parts of schooling.
Speaker 1: Like here's an intersection, here's a cliff here stairs. A
Speaker 1: lot of the schools have fake intersections built so they
Speaker 1: can really you know, do like hands on training there
Speaker 1: on the campus, right. And this is like intensive training.
Speaker 1: This isn't like whenever some burnout who like lives at
Speaker 1: the school gets around to it. Like, this is intensive
Speaker 1: training like every every day from multiple people, one of
Speaker 1: whom the dog trainer, the master trainer is actually assisted
Speaker 1: by other apprentice trainers, um and and like it's a
Speaker 1: very intensive um months long training. Yeah, about six months,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, And that's after a year to a
Speaker 1: year and a half of puppy training. So by the
Speaker 1: time I handled uh gets it, that's you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years old. Well, not only is there so
Speaker 1: there's puppy training, six months of intensive dog school training,
Speaker 1: and then when the handlers finally matched, there's a whole
Speaker 1: month where the handler and the dog are trained together
Speaker 1: and the matching process takes a little while too. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't just throw any dog with any person. That's
Speaker 1: got to be a just like adopting any dog, it's
Speaker 1: gotta be a good personality match for you. So, Chuck Water,
Speaker 1: let's go back to dog training school. We got a
Speaker 1: little excited. Okay, um right, So, like you said, a
Speaker 1: lot of places will have their own intersections built simulated. Um.
Speaker 1: The first step before they ever get to that point
Speaker 1: is learning to walk like a guy dog in a
Speaker 1: straight line, a little forward ahead of the handler and
Speaker 1: slightly to the left, up and to the left. One,
Speaker 1: and this is a big one. The guy dog has
Speaker 1: to be taught to think of its of the world
Speaker 1: in human size dog's eye view any longer, but human size,
Speaker 1: because apparently they pick up pretty easily, like, well, there's
Speaker 1: a garbage can. I need to make a wide arc
Speaker 1: around the garbage cancer that the guy I'm leading doesn't
Speaker 1: run into the garbage can. But what about that narrow
Speaker 1: cravasse that I can fit through, no problem? But my
Speaker 1: blind guy is a big fatty in the way he
Speaker 1: can fit through their Look at this guy exactly, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to go around the block because he can't
Speaker 1: go down this alleyway. Right. A dog has to think
Speaker 1: in terms of of its world like that, And that's
Speaker 1: that's enormous to be able to train something like that,
Speaker 1: and for the dog to be able to learn like that,
Speaker 1: that's just really my hat is off, like over and
Speaker 1: over again. I'm just not even putting it back on
Speaker 1: for the rest of this episode. Uh yeah. The one
Speaker 1: that really knocked me out was the headroom. Like the dog,
Speaker 1: even though it's two and a half feet off the ground,
Speaker 1: will be able to look up and say, this guy
Speaker 1: might or lady might bang her head on this low
Speaker 1: hanging beam. I shouldn't go into the shouldn't go in there.
Speaker 1: You stay out of the sewer. So that's just amazing,
Speaker 1: Like the dog has to look up and know how
Speaker 1: tall the owner is and gauge how low that beam is. Unreal.
Speaker 1: That matched again with the most spectacular thing in the world,
Speaker 1: selective disobedience, um stopping at all curbs, all stairs, um
Speaker 1: learning all of the commands, Uh, go to the right,
Speaker 1: go to the left, forward you mean? And I watched
Speaker 1: Short Circule last night holds up pretty well. Um, except
Speaker 1: that just as crappy as it was exactly the Fisher
Speaker 1: Stevens character. The Indian programmer is so racist contests because
Speaker 1: it's a white guy doing like the worst Indian impression
Speaker 1: Acky Rooney and and what's it called? I have no
Speaker 1: idea breakfast at Tippany's. He played the Mr Moto or
Speaker 1: whatever the Chinese. Yeah, oh, I have to watch that
Speaker 1: very famous racist portrayal. But anyway, like Johnny, they couldn't
Speaker 1: get Johnny five to to come for Ali Shed. He
Speaker 1: couldn't until she stumbled upon Forward. She's like, come here,
Speaker 1: come this way walk and he was just standing there
Speaker 1: and she's like forward and he's like, oh, forward goes forward.
Speaker 1: So guy dogs and sentient robots, you have to stay
Speaker 1: forward from the eighties, all right. So we said before
Speaker 1: of the puppies are weeded out off the top. Out
Speaker 1: of those puppies who go to school, about fifty of
Speaker 1: those are kicked out of school. And then finally, once
Speaker 1: those remaining are in school, only about those graduate. So
Speaker 1: they really weed out. To say, out of four hundred
Speaker 1: dogs that go through puppy training, you've got like a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty can eventually graduate and go on to
Speaker 1: be matched with a handler. Um. And you know, there
Speaker 1: there are a few things that will weed a dog out,
Speaker 1: even if they're pretty good. If they're like aggressive towards
Speaker 1: cats or something you know, that'll weed them out, so
Speaker 1: they really get the cream of the crop. Drug problems gone.
Speaker 1: They don't want any drug abusers in there, so they
Speaker 1: get the cream of the crop. At the end, make
Speaker 1: sure they're compatible with their handler, train the handler with
Speaker 1: the people, and then boom, you've got a match made
Speaker 1: in heaven. Yeah. In the article, Tom Harris says, like,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're taking a first time handler, somebody
Speaker 1: who hasn't had a guy dog before. Um, by the
Speaker 1: time the handler comes in and you're putting it together
Speaker 1: with the dog, now you're basically in people training mode.
Speaker 1: Your guide dogs already trained. The process is training the
Speaker 1: handler in the commands that that the dog already knows, um,
Speaker 1: training the handler how to walk and and basically taking
Speaker 1: these this person and this dog and teaching them how
Speaker 1: to work as a team. Yeah. And the dog has
Speaker 1: you know, this is their new master. They've had their
Speaker 1: instructor for six months or more. So it takes a
Speaker 1: little while to adjust to this fact that hey, this
Speaker 1: is my new my new alpha dog. Yeah, and usually
Speaker 1: it takes I think on average about a month. That's
Speaker 1: about the time that set aside um. And so these
Speaker 1: nonprofit guide dog schools have like facilities for blind people
Speaker 1: to come live while they're spending a month learning how
Speaker 1: to work with their guide dog. Yeah, some of them
Speaker 1: have dorms. That's pretty cool. That's very cool. And again
Speaker 1: we should say all of this is free. The nonprofit
Speaker 1: group is shouldering all of the financial burden of puppy rasors. Um.
Speaker 1: They're given a stipend for food, All bills are paid
Speaker 1: by them the guide dog school. Um. They everything, everything
Speaker 1: that has to do with the training and the raising
Speaker 1: of these dogs is paid for um by these nonprofit groups.
Speaker 1: So amazing. If you're looking for a place to leave
Speaker 1: an inheritance, you could do worse than a guide dog school.
Speaker 1: That Josh is a one dog school. Right. I'll give
Speaker 1: you my text information if you email me directly. UM.
Speaker 1: So if you want to be an instructor, it's gonna
Speaker 1: vary depending on what school you're gonna try and go to,
Speaker 1: but generally you have to have two to three years
Speaker 1: UM experience as an apprentice supervised apprentice UH, and then
Speaker 1: different states have certification processes. Um. You're probably a college graduate. Um.
Speaker 1: Even though the job doesn't pay, it's still really hard
Speaker 1: to get this job. People want to do this, so
Speaker 1: it's it's wait listed a lot of times, not a
Speaker 1: lot of openings, and it's a tough job to get.
Speaker 1: It's very demanding physically and emotionally, and it's a real
Speaker 1: challenge as a trainer, but super rewarding. What don't you think?
Speaker 1: And if you are interested in becoming a master trainer,
Speaker 1: from what I understand, the best route to take is
Speaker 1: to start by being a puppy razor, work your way
Speaker 1: up to apprentice trainer and then to master trainer. And
Speaker 1: who knows, you may just feel like topping out at
Speaker 1: um puppy raiser. Anybody can do it. Violent application have
Speaker 1: to be, you know, pass of course it has to.
Speaker 1: I would imagine you. I don't see how you could
Speaker 1: have a job like a regular it's probably yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're exposing a dog to five new
Speaker 1: things a week, Yeah, I guess you could balance the
Speaker 1: two if it was like my work and this puppy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But even still, I don't know. I would think you'd
Speaker 1: probably get bumped off a lot. And they're screening you
Speaker 1: too to make sure you're like a super awesome person, right,
Speaker 1: and you're not like I'm gonna explose them to the
Speaker 1: back of my hand. You have like stains on the
Speaker 1: sleeveless undershirt that you wore to that puppy raising application meeting.
Speaker 1: Give me like four of them puppies. I'll train them good.
Speaker 1: They may pass you by. Yeah. Yeah, so uh yeah,
Speaker 1: anybody can do it, I guess, is what we're trying
Speaker 1: to say almost to anybody. Yeah, and I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if they how heavily they screen as far
Speaker 1: as like if you have kids, or you can have
Speaker 1: other dogs, even other puppies, but your puppy has to
Speaker 1: be I think seven months old. Yeah, And I guess
Speaker 1: the whole point is they have to deal with those
Speaker 1: distractions right anyway, bad thing. That's exactly what the mind
Speaker 1: thought processes behind that. Uh. And like we said, they
Speaker 1: retire generally eight to ten years old, um, although that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're like old and feeble. That just means
Speaker 1: it's probably time to get a new guide dog. Right.
Speaker 1: They are sharp mentally typically, um, but they're starting to
Speaker 1: slow down a little bit and they have to be
Speaker 1: able to keep pace with their their handlers. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think about eight to ten is the usual age
Speaker 1: that they're retired. Yeah, and like you said, they'll offer
Speaker 1: it to the handler. If the handlers like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can handle like keeping this dog and still get my
Speaker 1: new guy dog, then great. If not, they may offer
Speaker 1: to the original puppy raiser, or you might be lucky enough.
Speaker 1: It's another waitless deal because people want to adopt retired
Speaker 1: guy dogs because they're pretty much the best and you
Speaker 1: may not have as much time with them, but it's
Speaker 1: you're providing them with Like it's almost like, you know,
Speaker 1: taking in an old person and giving them something great
Speaker 1: in their twilight years, right, like just letting them whip
Speaker 1: cream right out of the can in time they want
Speaker 1: kind of thing, whoop wherever you want. They're like, dude,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? Poop into my hand? The dog
Speaker 1: just seeds are crazy. It's like I remember I used
Speaker 1: to work, Yeah, asked me to do? I love that
Speaker 1: blind guy so much more? Did you? I can't even
Speaker 1: mention it on this, I think, all right, all right, Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else about guide dogs? This was a
Speaker 1: little wackier than I thought it was gonna be. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to learn all about guide dogs, you
Speaker 1: can type guide dogs into the search bar at how
Speaker 1: Stuff works dot com. And since I said switch bar,
Speaker 1: it's time for friends a message break hit the jingle. Uh, now, Chuck,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. That's right, and this is
Speaker 1: dog centric. It just worked out that way. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is from an e R doctor whose passion is animal
Speaker 1: rescue and her name is Jane M. Gene Ab j
Speaker 1: e n a B. I never heard that j e
Speaker 1: n a B. Yeah, Jeanette. Uh so, Jane says, I
Speaker 1: have a charity knitting site, guys, where I donate of
Speaker 1: the proceeds from selling my hand into items to an
Speaker 1: animal rescue in your neck of the woods. Actually, Angels
Speaker 1: among Us pet rescue in Alpharetta, Georgia. Do you remember them? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: how do I know that name? In either may be
Speaker 1: like the can dogs detect like death? Or can dogs
Speaker 1: tell when you're gonna die? Or can dogs detect illness?
Speaker 1: Remember the chihuahua that could detect breast cancer? And um,
Speaker 1: I feel like we talked about that organization in that episode.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. So Angels among Us in Alpharetta
Speaker 1: they rescued thousands of dogs and cats from kill shelters
Speaker 1: right before being euthanized and found them loving homes. Last year,
Speaker 1: my knitting site donated five thousand dollars to their cause,
Speaker 1: and this year my goal is six thousand dollars. And
Speaker 1: this is like she's just knitting, selling this stuff and
Speaker 1: given all the money away. Knitting, knitting, knitting. A few
Speaker 1: days ago, I lost my fifteen year old rescue girl, Rica,
Speaker 1: Japanese for a beautiful girl. I rescued her when she
Speaker 1: was eight weeks old and she was with me through marriage, divorce,
Speaker 1: medical school, residency, and first four years of practice. She
Speaker 1: moved with me from Denver to Tulsa, to Kansas City,
Speaker 1: to Grand Junction, Colorado, to Mendesito, California, and back to Denver.
Speaker 1: Her loss has broken my heart, but it has also
Speaker 1: inspired me to work even harder to accomplish my goal
Speaker 1: for other homeless animals, including asking for help spreading the words. Guys,
Speaker 1: I would love it uh to make you both some
Speaker 1: hand knitted hats for the winner if you think you'd
Speaker 1: enjoy them. The links to my page on Facebook and
Speaker 1: too Angels among Us or below you can see pictures
Speaker 1: of the hats, baby hats, dog sweaters, all kinds of
Speaker 1: things I can knit. UM, thanks for your consideration but
Speaker 1: more than anything, thanks for a fantastic podcast that keeps
Speaker 1: me entertained and educated. Uh So, this is from Jane
Speaker 1: genab m d, owner of Jane's Creations, and we would
Speaker 1: like to challenge people to go out and buy one
Speaker 1: of her knitted gifts because that money is going to
Speaker 1: go to Angels among Us Pet Rescue. That is so cool.
Speaker 1: So go to our Facebook page um Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash Jane's Creations j A. N. E. S. Creations of Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 1: or just check out Angels among Us Pet Rescue at
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Angels Rescue. And uh, let's help
Speaker 1: her reach that goal of six thousand bucks because that's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Let's do it. Let's make it an official
Speaker 1: s y s K thing. And hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: Jerry adopted her cute little dog, Tooley from Angels among
Speaker 1: Us going with the drum com Yeah, doing that washed
Speaker 1: out of God dogs. Yeah, the tweaker but yes, so
Speaker 1: we have a personal connection to and um, let's let's
Speaker 1: do it, Chuck. Let's make it an official s y
Speaker 1: s K thing to raise some money for this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so go to Facebook dot com slash Jaane's Creations and
Speaker 1: uh Ja dot Cars, corresponding with her own email, I
Speaker 1: was very sad to hear about Rica, but she's got
Speaker 1: other animals because she's an animal crazy person just like me.
Speaker 1: It's nice. Animal crazy people are the best crazy people around. Agreed. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you want us to help try to raise some
Speaker 1: money for a very worthy cause via you get in
Speaker 1: touch at this, We're gonna have to check you out,
Speaker 1: make sure you're legit, make sure you're not, you know,
Speaker 1: making money off of other people's good will. Ye tacky,
Speaker 1: And we get a lot of these so unfortunately can't
Speaker 1: like get everyone on the air, but we do our best.
Speaker 1: We try. UM. You can get in touch with us
Speaker 1: via Twitter at s y SK podcast. You can join
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email directly to Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. And you can join us on
Speaker 1: our website, which is pretty awesome. It's called Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla