The handover of the guide dog

    The handover of the guide dog is critical for the future cooperation between the vision-impaired individual and his or her four-legged guide. The dog must “fit” the person just like a good pair of boots and for this, the person must devote enough time and energy towards the dog and his training. It is not possible to explain to the dog that his life will change and he must have enough time to adjust to the change when it happens. At Czech Guide Dog School the handover of the dog is done under the supervision of the instructor ant it takes about two weeks. The first part of the handover happens in the lodging part of our institution. Each client stays at our institution for a week and learns to communicate with the guide dog in a place that is familiar to the dog. The clients experience professional and excellent care during their stay in the institution so that they could familiarize themselves with their future seeing eye dog as much as possible, and so they could learn how to care for him, how to walk with him, how to put on the leash, how to brush him and how to feed him. After a week, the client and his or her dog are acquainted well enough and the guide dog should easier adapt to the new surroundings when he goes home with the client. The second week of the handover takes place at the home of the client. There, under the supervision of an instructor, the guide dog and its owner learn and get used to regular routes. The length and style of the handover may vary due to needs and wants of our clients.

    With each handover the "family" of owners of guide dogs grows and these dogs help their owners make a big step towards the independence and self-reliance.

    In the beginning, when the new owner is just getting really used to having his or her guide dog, it is necessary to be patient. We cannot explain anything to the dog beforehead, so we cannot prepare him for certain changes in his life. That is why each person who takes over a guide dog must take into consideration the time that the dog's adaptation to this change takes. With patience, there is also need for following through on the instructor’s advice and other employees of the institution. We do not want for the guide dog not to take his new owner seriously and start causing problems. A dog who went through our whole training for his duty, passed his final exam and was successfully handed over is a young, educated beginner; just like a young doctor or engineer with a fresh diploma. Only with everyday life experience it is possible to become an expert. Even in guide dogs, it is true that the dog is a mirror image of his owner. It depends on how the pair interacts together, how the dog is treated, if he receives everything that a dog needs in his life in order to use all the skills he learned during his training. A feeling of need and dependency from both sides will make an inseparably duo of person and dog throughout the whole active life of the dog.