How are guide dogs taught road safety?

[DoIdriveaVauxhallZafira]

Road safety training for normal dogs seems to be little more than walking well on a lead and sit & wait but guidedogs seem to be taught about cars, traffic, waiting for the road to be clear, cyclists crossings etc

...How? I'd love to know! It's clearly more than just densitising them to modes of transport!

Maybe the trainers read them the Highway Code?

This is a Canadian version but there is lots of info on line about this.
unsurprisingly, it’s quite detailed.
i follow some trainee police dogs on twitter, really interesting how they train them from small puppies

😆

I visited the guide dog training center during an open day. It was very interesting and we watched the dogs being trained.

The dogs start off clever which helps, then I think it's mostly repetition of staged situations showing the dog when their human gets hurt so the dog can learn to anticipate.
I saw a trainee dog in my road with a man who kept walking into an overhanging branch and saying Ouch, teaching the dog to look upwards for hazards. Until my neighbour saw it happening and ran out with a saw to cut off the branch!

@IsabellaGoodthing yes they do have to start off clever. The police dogs (and I imagine the guide dogs) have loads of different tests, mental and physical as the job is very hard for them , and they have to have the right temperament and physical fitness.
my friends parents are involved in puppy training for guide dogs and they take them into any situation you could imagine.
also when retired the police dogs are treated with the utmost love and respect (often remaining with their handlers or go to experienced foster families) in an acknowledgement of their service.

A friend of mine had a dog that'd failed guide dog training (she was from a long line of dogs where some of the puppies had gone to be guide dogs and I think at least one of her litter mates made it). She was a very smart dog but apparently she never cracked the idea of the human actually needing protection - she'd stop and look up at you like 'are you kidding me?!' rather than stopping them doing something. My friend showed us once - if you pretended you were going to bump into something or whatever, that dog was just embarrassed for you.

We always wondered if she just saw through the pretence that the trainer can't see. Or maybe she just didn't have a particularly caring nature!

So I know that a lot of the dogs put forward for training don't end up being guide dogs; it is quite hard.

A relative used to be a puppy fosterer, .so they start training right away and it is just practised behaviour really, they are then taken for further training then the blind person also gets instruction with their dog.

I've only seen information like the picture you posted, which says what they learn but not how they learn it

I think many dog owners would love to be able to teach greater road safety to their dogs

😆 being a guide dog trainer must be one of them best jobs out there

They also take cues from the harness they wear.

Sure but what practised behaviour? Is it literally just people modelling sit & wait for then green man or look I'll fall over and say 'ouch'?

Yes all of that,

My dog was being considered to train as assistance for DH. Considered unsuitable as she won't consistently do a task. For example, picking up an item..after a few times, she looks at you with utter distain as if to say, you idiot, stop dropping things.
She is trained to find people instead. Useful when DH wandered off from an arranged meeting point and she went after him.🙈😂

We re-homed a trainee assistance dog who didn't quite make the grade (she was very easily distracted by squirrels !) We were told the failure rate can be up to 2/3 of a litter. Some of their training is inate in that labradors are naturally a 'caring' breed. The actual tasks are lots of repetition from very young with the reward of squeezy cheese at the end! There was a series on guide dogs which I can't remember what channel it was on, a lot has to do with the harness as when not using it that's the sign that they are 'off duty'

The Guide Dog programme was on ch5.

If it's anything like police dogs, they start of very bright and use a lot of snacks to train.

*off

😀It may be more complicated than that! Maybe saying'walk' every time the green light goes on until the dog associates the two. I want to find out all about it now...

My friend was a puppy walker for guide dogs, she ended up keeping one because he failed training, too distracted by everything

My Dds neighbour has a "failure" the dog is lovely but not the brightest button 😀

My aunt had a failure when I was young - the dog just didn't like busy roads but was happy living by the sea. It trained 4 year old me to sneak into the cupboard and get it extra dog biscuits.....

I saw someone once training a guide dog to not walk between 2 parked cars. So the man would step out between the cars and every time the dog resisted he would give it a treat, move onto the next parked car.
They drive also cars at them and train them to back off.
In saying that I have also seen a sight impaired person nearly get hit by a car because they stepped out. Usually visually impaired people will use formal crossings or ask someone to help them cross to avoid any accidents.

It’s nothing to do with the dog recognising a flashing green man. They are taught to stop at kerbs.

The guide dog owner then uses the crossing and listens for the beeping sound or uses the spinning button underneath the box and tells the dog to go forward. The dog is trained not to go forward if there’s a moving vehicle approaching (they train the dogs with slow moving cars coming towards them at the guide dog centre and rewarding them for staying put)

They are taught “intelligent disobedience” so even if the owner is saying “move forward” they won’t do it if a vehicle is approaching.

The owner has to know the route and the dog just knows things like “find the kerb” or “find a bench” and will walk round obstacles but once the dog has been working the same routes it’ll learn the way to favourite places like the favourite shop or a relative’s house.

Thank you, I've just done a bit of research and realised this. Fascinating.