2011-04-28-Dog Guides for Multiply Disabled People
Seminars@Hadley
Dog Guides for Multiply Disabled People
Presented by
Ellin Purcell
Michelle Pouliot
Keith McGregor
April 28, 2011
Billy Brookshire
Welcome to Seminars@Hadley.I am Billy Brookshire your Moderator.Your presenters this morning, and you’ve got some great presenters folks, we’ve got Ellin Purcell who’s the Director or Special Needs with Guiding Eyes for the Blind; Michelle Pouliot, who is the Director for Research and Development for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and Keith McGregor, who’s the Director of K-9 Training and Deaf-Blind Services for Leader Dogs for the Blind.
They’re going to tell you about the programs they have, and they are some wonderful programs too.Folks, let’s get started.I don’t want to use any more of their time then I have to.So Ellin, would you like to lead us off?
Ellin Purcell
Alright, I’ll get started then.I am Ellin Purcell, the Director of the Special Needs Program at Guiding Eyes for the Blind.The Special Needs Program is the department at Guiding Eyes for the Blind that trains multiply disabled clients in the use of dog guides.I’m going to focus on the application process.This will give you insight into the prerequisites needed to apply for a dog guide and help you decide if a dog guide will enhance your travel and your life.
Guiding Eyes for the Blind is a dog guide training school in the United States.We are located in Yorktown Heights, NY, which is about 35 miles north of NY City.We use primarily Labrador Retrievers with a small percentage of Golden Retrievers, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever crosses and German Shepards.So are program is 85% Labrador Retrievers with the remaining 15% a combination of the other breeds.
We have an established breeding program with these breeds and we’ve bred for desirable characteristics for guide work.Guiding Eyes was founded in 1954 and the Special Needs Program was formally established as a designated program in 1990.We have three instructors and a director in our Special Needs Program.
We work with individuals with a wide range of disabilities.We define it as anyone with a secondary challenge in addition to blindness.Too many and too diverse to name them all today, I will name just a few.In our Special Needs Program we do work with deaf-blind clients; that is included in our umbrella of our Special Needs Program.
We also work with individuals with Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, anyone with balance issues, people perhaps walking with a support cane and individuals with some cognitive impairment who may need a certain pace of instruction to learn.That being said, the individuals with cognitive impairments, they do need to be independent with their living skills and have the living skills to care for a dog guide.
There are occasions when the applicants to our program do not have a defined or diagnosed second disability.You know, no one’s been able to put a pretty little label on it.So they may need the services of the Special Needs Program, so there doesn’t always have to be a defined second disability.An example of this would perhaps be an older client who may need extra rest periods during training, a flexible schedule, a certain pace of instruction to learn.So that definitely falls into our program as well.
It’s very important to understand that while we do work with clients with multiple disabilities these are first and foremost dog guides.Individuals need to make the decision that guide work is the primary need and what they want from this service dog.If another disability is a priority and something else you want to explore, you may want to look into another type of service dog at another type of school.
And an example I can give of this is, I mentioned earlier that our guide dogs are trained to accept and compensate for balance issues to some extent.However, they can’t provide the type of bracing needed for a person who really needed to lean on them and use them to stand up.That would be a different type of service dog, so that individual may explore other options.So these are dog guides for the multiply disabled.
The application process, as with everything, it starts with the important but tedious paperwork.You can apply online or we can send a paper application or we can even do it over the phone if you need to do that.This initial paperwork includes an application with basic information, a release of information giving us permission to contact other professionals regarding your history, a questionnaire to be filled out by an orientation and mobility instructor and a medical form to be filled out by a doctor.
The prerequisite requirements to begin the application are you have to have completed orientation and mobility training and have safe travel skills with a white cane or long cane. These skills come first – these are stepping stones to working with a dog guide, you need these skills first and then apply them to working with your dog.
You also need to have already established independent travel routes.Why?A guide dog needs to work every day to maintain their work pattern.You need to have some travel routes in place before you get the dog.Once you have the dog and you have a good working relationship, you can expand your travel routes as much as you want, but you can’t learn them with the dog.You need something to start with.
You need to have at least one route, but preferable three to four routes.And you need the stamina and skills to complete a route of four to skip blocks without needing to stop for rest.We use blocks as just a general measurement.We tried miles and kilometers and blocks seems to be a little bit more universal and people understand that, even for people who do indoor work or don’t have city blocks, they understand this approximate distance.So the safe travel skills and the travel routes.
Once all your paperwork starts tumbling in and we’ve established you have travel skills and travel routes, we will conduct a home interview.We will come meet you in your home area.The home interview is educational and it’s designed for us to evaluate you.The home interview lasts two to three hours.It’s informational; we’ll give you a lot of information.And we also will assess your home for safety.
We’re not there to criticize housekeeping or look for dust or anything like that.We want to make sure a home is safe for a dog.So we assess the home for safety and then we want to see you work one of those independent travel routes.We’re going to follow you when you’re working it with your cane.We will video it so we have a record of it and this is to help us in the dog selection process and to maintain a record of it.
We want to see your travel environment, your travel skills, your travel needs, and how your secondary disabilities might affect your travel and your walking.How it affects you when you’re standing still.We assess all these things during watching you walk with your cane.We do not expect perfection.We do not want or give scores of 100%.
If you make a slight error that’s okay, we’re just looking for safety.And actually if you make an error and show good problem solving skills, that is great, that is golden because problem solving skills will be needed when you have a dog guide.
Next we’ll do a Juno walk or a test walk.This is where you will hold the harness handle and we will pull you along in the harness.So there’s no actual dog, we’re just simulating the movement so you can get the feel for walking with a dog and it gives us information regarding your speed of travel, the strength of pull you need, again, how you’re going to walk and how possibly your other disabilities affect your walking.
And we can record all this information and it helps us in assessing your needs for a dog.During this time we will also assess your travel vision.Yes, we do except clients with remaining vision. It’s important when working with a dog guide to learn to use your vision with the dog.You don’t want your vision to interfere with the dogs’ work, which can cause a breakdown in the work pattern.
So we will work during the home interview to assess the vision, and this can be a learned skill, to learn to use it with the dog guide.We’ll talk about what you need to do and see if during the Juno walk you can apply what we’re telling you about your vision.You may be asked to wear a blindfold during the home interview or during training just to assist in the learning process.
Also during the home interview we bring some of our basic equipment – harness and leash – show it to you.We have many different modifications we can make if needed.People have issues holding things, back problems, manual dexterity; we can make modifications to the equipment and we’ll try to assess that during the home interview.
For our deaf-blind applicants, same criteria.Independent travel routes and travel skills.During the home interview we will assess the street crossing skills with the deaf-blind applicants.Do they use communication cards? Are there tactile, vibrating walk signals?Do they use their remaining vision, a monocular?We’ll assess that during the home interview.
We also will try to learn as much as we can about the communication method.Now, the communication method is not being assessed to determine if we can accept them, it’s being assessed so we know how to communicate and how to train the dog.So especially the expressive communication, if the person communicates by sign language or verbal or a combination, this can impact the training of the dog.
We assess if the person has verbal or vocal skills to express joy or disapproval with appropriate tone and volume.This can be used for praise or correction for the dog.If the person uses all non-verbal, we train the dog for all non-verbal; that’s no problem.Or if they simply are uncomfortable using their voice we can do that.so we’ll assess these things so we know how to prepare the dog.
So those are the prerequisites to review.Possible reasons for not qualifying for a guide dog would be if you lack safe travel skills, if you lack independent travel routes or the physical stamina to complete the routes, if the home environment is not safe or if you lack the independent living skills to care for the dogs basic needs.
Upon acceptance a dog is pre-selected and specifically trained for you and your disabilities.And upon completion of the training, we train the person and the guide dog together.At Guiding Eyes for the Blind we have two options for training – a residential program and a home training program.For the residential training program the students come and live here in the dormitory. It’s a 26 day training course for our Special Needs Program clients.They may spend 19 days here and then seven days at home with the trainer.
The Special Needs students live in the dormitory and will work exclusively with a Special Needs Program Instructor on the specifics of their training and their special needs.However there is also a general class in progress with possible 12 other students in training.So everyone will socialize and participate socially and interact in the dormitory and in some of the training locations, but all of the Special Needs training is done with a Special Needs Instructor.
For the home training option we will train a person in their home are for 10 to 15 days, depending on what’s needed.We bring the dog to the home are and work with the person on their routes.We do a lot of talking and assessing to decide which program is best for the client and what will be beneficial.There’s a lot that goes into pros and cons for each program.And generally we find a good fit for each person and what works best for each person.
Training with the guide dog – at Guiding Eyes for the Blind it’s a lifetime commitment from us.We are always available by phone or email to talk about anything that’s going on with the training or the dog.If a client is having a problem in the home area and we can’t solve it over the phone, we’ll travel to their home area to work with them.
And we also do routine zone visits where we visit every applicant every 18 months to two years to just follow up with them, make sure everything is going okay, check on the progress with the dog and simply keep in touch.So we can help in any way needed.
Okay, this is just some of the basic information about the Special Needs Program and Guiding Eyes for the Blind.At this point I will pass it back to Billy.
Billy Brookshire
Thank you, Ellin.And Keith, I believe you’re up next.I enjoyed that Ellin, so Keith, take it away.
Keith McGregor
Great, thank you very much.My name is Keith McGregor. I work at Leader Dogs for the Blind and we started the Deaf-Blind Program back in 1991 and the people that come into this program have varying degrees of deaf-blindness.And the requirements are very similar to what Ellin just mentioned, although, some of ours are slightly different.
Someone has to be 16 years of age before they can apply to get a dog from us.They have to have independent orientation and mobility skills.We ask that they have a support network and that they give us names and contact information for their support people that are going to support them after they return home with their dog in the beginning.
We also ask for a video of their travel skills as well as their sign language skills.We will do a visit for the people who are applying to the Deaf-Blind Program, to get a dog from us.And the independent living skills are also crucial. They need to be able to care financially and also independently care for the dog on their own.
The dogs that we use at Leader Dogs for the Blind are mainly Labrador Retrievers.We do use some Golden Retrievers in the Deaf-Blind Program.We do use German Shepards in our regular dog guide program, but very rarely in the Deaf-Blind Program.We’ve just found the Labs and the Goldens were better suited for this work.
Some of the other requirements that we have are if the person has poor balance we will try to fit the dogs with a special harness, a balance harness that can actually be used for balance and guide work.And just like Guiding Eyes, we will offer either residential or in-home training.But typically, the in-home training is reserved for clients who have had dogs from us in the past and been successful with those dogs.And then we will also follow a client home after they do their residential training for 26 days in-house.
Some of the things that we do with our dogs are train the dogs using some basic sign language as well as whistle recall.That way if the person doesn’t use their voice, then they can blow a whistle to call the dog to them if the dog were to get away from them.
The requirements for the street crossing methods are very similar to what Ellin mentioned in that the person has to show street crossing, that they have the skills to cross the streets whether it’s using the crossing cards or the tactile crossing or using the remaining vision, if they still have enough remaining vision to judge the traffic flow safely.
We have three instructors in the Deaf-Blind Program; two of us are fluent in sign language.And we have a third that is going to school now to learn sign language.And if we are training dogs not using our voice then we would use food rewards for praise instead of using a verbal praise.We can also use physical praise as well.
And that’s about the extent of the differences between the programs.We do focus mainly on deaf-blind clients and we have graduated just over 120 clients from this program.Billy, I’m going to turn it back to you.
Billy Brookshire
Thank you Keith; great overview.Okay, Michelle I think you’re up.Ladies and gentleman, Michelle Pouliot.
Michelle Pouliot
Okay everybody, good morning.I’m Michelle Pouliot and I’m from Guide Dogs for the Blind.We have two campus locations.One is in San Rafael, California, which is our main campus, and I’m based out of our Oregon campus up near Portland, Oregon, near a town called Boring, but believe me we aren’t boring.
So our Wheelchair Program began in 2004.And the reason we started a wheelchair guide dog program was in response to two of our existing clients who’s health needs had changed and were getting to retire guides, or had already retired guides, and had a need of using wheelchairs.