Innovations by Members, Associates and Supporters

Darinka Lecnik-Urbancil, Board Member, chaired this panel.

Paris Diamantidis, freelance GDMI working for Lara Guide Dog School, spoke about Positive Reinforcement Training, saying that the guide dog relationship was about trust between the guide dog, the handler and the trainer. Dogs learned that training was rewarding and it made them happy. Where there was a positive consequence, the action was more likely to be repeated.

In early training people believed that dogs should not work for food because it would teach the dog to scavenge and verbal reinforcement or punishment was the only way to train them. Those ideas were now obsolete and trainers were using food particularly to help with fear-based issues such as moving steps or riding on buses.

Food was the fastest reinforcer. Puppy walkers were encouraged to use food at every point. A GDMI then transferred the training to a guide dog handler, using proper skills and positive reinforcement, using food as the connection. The idea of receiving food helped the dog understand the verbal praise. Giving the food at the right moment was like hitting the jackpot. In the hope of being rewarded, the dog would work harder. In dog training, a clicker or a verbal “yes” was used as a marker, followed by food and then verbal praise with physical touch. This was not bribing the dog but helping it to understand that praise would be coming.

Once viable behaviour had been achieved, some handlers dropped food reward, but this created confusion and discomfort for the dog. Dogs trained through PRT were adept at problem-solving, but adversive trained dogs less so. It was important to always carry food. If the food was used sporadically, it would not be as effective. There was a lively discussion on this controversial subject.

David Adams said that when his dog was expecting a food reward for taking him to the office, he drooled too much. Paris suggested feeding him half the food before leaving home and the rest as small treats along the way to eliminate drooling.

Karine Garnier asked how many handlers in the room had food with them. Fourteen hands went up (there were 15 dogs at the conference). Karine didn’t think food rewards were good long term. Paris suggested gradually reducing the amount of reward food.

Marianne Tenhami said that guide dogs used to be well-rewarded with nice words alone and that she did not like carrying food for rewards. When Finn Hellman said that he did not like food in his pocket, Paris suggested buying a small pouch on the internet.

Emil Urbancil remarked that, although dogs are trained to not pick up food from the ground, handlers could get lax about this and they should take the dog back to the trainer from time to time for retraining. Paris said that when a dog bent down to eat food on the ground, the handler should say “no” and then when the dog did not eat anything he should be given a treat.

Marianne Tenhami from the Finnish Association of Guide Dog Users told the conference about their work. She said that the association was established in 1948 and today focused on access problems (although the country generally had good access), keeping the dogs well trained, celebrating International Guide Dog Day, and cooperating with the two guide dog schools in Finland:
• Näkövammaisten liiton Opaskoirakoulu, Guide Dog School of the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired, a member of IGDF
• Suomen Opaskoirakoulu oy, Finnish Guide Dog School, a member of EGDF

There were 194 guide dog user members and 58 supporter members of the association. There were about 230 guide dogs in Finland, the Guide Dog School of the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired aimed to train 25 dogs a year. The health insurers dictated where people got their dogs, always choosing the cheaper alternative, something the association is working on.

Ana Bacelo from Portugal, representing the Italian Organisation of Service Dogs, said that she never thought she would be at the conference talking about training because she was just a normal person who did it herself. She got her dog when it was 4 months old to be a companion dog and it had come from a rescue centre. She took both of her dogs with her everywhere to give them every experience and decided that her young dog Abba could be her next guide dog. She concluded that her dog was not perfect and she herself was not perfect, but the dog worked well for her.

Cátia Lima was Portuguese as well but was living in Italy. She said that her plan was for her dog to just grow up but then she decided to train the dog herself from the age of three months, which she did without being able to see. Her dog learned to be at home in the world, then became familiar with commands, learned to walk straight, kept a pace and stopped at the curb. When her dog was 20 months old a guide dog instructor visited for three days, after which time he considered the dog fully trained.

She said that she was satisfied to have a dog that did what she wanted and walked fast. She preferred training her own dog to getting one from a school, and she paid much less than the €1000 a trained dog would have cost her. She had been able to choose the breeder, the breed of dog and the characteristics she was looking for.

She didn’t think that training your own dog was right for everyone. It was difficult to train when blind because to teach a dog to stop at a curb you had to know where the curb was before your reached it. You had to be motivated and sensitive and able to spend 30 minutes every day to train a dog. You had to consider that the training might not be successful, so you had to have an alternative for the dog and for yourself.

Darinka summarised the pros and cons of self-trained dogs:

Advantages:

• Handler could choose the breed and bond with it as a young puppy
• Puppies learned the handler’s physical and behavioural characteristics at an early age
• Handler could avoid a waiting time of several years and could enjoy emotional benefit of the dog during training
• Training could focus on handler’s specific needs
• Self-training could build a stronger bond in the partnership

Disadvantages

• Failure rate was high
• Training could be too emotionally involved to recognise if dog was failing
• Self-training could be too difficult for persons with severe disabilities
• It was difficult to find the necessary traits in dogs that were not scientifically bred
• The time and effort to train the dog could be too demanding on the disabled handler

Hillary Armour said that the European standard is completely accepting of self-trained dogs.

A presentation prepared by the Assistance Dog Assessment Association in the UK was shown. It said they were a new charity providing independent assessment for self-trained assistance dog partnerships. Upon successful completion of the assessment, handlers could take up public access rights as assistance dog owners, knowing that their dog’s welfare needs were being met alongside the safety of the general public.

The ADAA said it believed the definition of an assistance dog was not clear and the owner-trained community were asking for an independent assessment to distinguish those who have been trained to the same standard as from an accredited school. It was assumed they would be assessing according to the existing ADI standard and would adopt the upcoming European standard.

They aimed to reassure service providers that the dogs were of sufficient quality and they would investigate access issues on behalf of successfully assessed partnerships.

The five trustees had a variety of impressive backgrounds in the assistance dog sector. At that time, they had 13 dogs on their register, two of which were flightapproved.

The meeting closed for the day and delegates later gathered in the hotel lobby for a short walk to a restaurant on the beach for their evening meal.