FAQ'S - What Does A Guide Dog Do?
 Guide dogs help blind or visually impaired people get
around in the world. In most countries, they are allowed anywhere that the
public is allowed, so they can help their handlers be any place they might want
to go. To do this, a guide dog must know how to:
Keep on a direct route, ignoring distractions such as smells, other animals and people.
Maintain a steady pace, to the left and just ahead of the
handler.
Stop at all curbs until told to proceed.
Turn left and right, move forward and stop on command.
Recognize and avoid obstacles that the
handler won't be able to fit through (narrow passages and low overheads).
Stop at the bottom and top of stairs until told to
proceed.
Bring the handler to elevator buttons.
Lie quietly when the handler is sitting down.
Help the handler to board and move
around buses, subways and other forms of public transportation.
Obey a number of verbal commands.
Additionally, a guide dog must know to disobey any
command that would put the handler in danger. This ability, called selective
disobedience, is perhaps the most amazing thing about guide dogs -- that they
can balance obedience with their own assessment of the situation.
 This capacity is extremely important at crosswalks, where
the handler and dog must work very closely together to navigate the situation
safely. When the team reaches the curb, the dog stops, signaling to the handler
that they have reached a crosswalk. Dogs cannot distinguish the color of traffic
lights, so the handler must make the decision of when it is safe to proceed
across the road. The handler listens to the flow of traffic to figure out when
the light has changed and then gives the command "forward." If there
is no danger, the dog proceeds across the road in a straight line. If there are
cars approaching, the dog waits until the danger is gone and then follows the
forward command.
In a handler-guide dog team, the guide dog doesn't lead the
handler and the handler doesn't completely control the guide dog; the two work
together to get from place to place. The guide dog doesn't know where the
destination is, so it must follow the handler's instructions of how far to go
and when to turn. The handler can't see the obstacles along the way, so the
guide dog must make its own decisions as to how to navigate the team's path.
Each half of the team relies on the other to accomplish the tasks at hand.
As a guide dog gets more experience with its handler, it may
be able to take on even more responsibility. For example, many veteran guide
dogs know all of their master's usual destinations. All the handler has to tell
them is "go to the office" or "find the door," and the guide
dog will follow the complete route!
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