Have Paws Will Travel    
 Guide Dog Puppy Raising Club
 Arapahoe County, Colorado

empty harnessDogs in Harness Training


Updated 18 Feb 2010
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After 12-18 months in the raisers' homes, the puppies are returned to Guide Dogs for the Blind for harness training. It takes about five months to learn everything they need to know to safely guide a blind person, including avoiding obstacles (working a clearence), traffic training, and intelligent disobedience (disobeying a command if  obeying would put the team in danger). When the dog as learned everything it needs to know and passed every test, it is ready to graduate. The dogs are carefully matched with a blind partner for pace, temperament, and size, among other things. It takes 28 days of training the blind person and the dog together before they graduate as a working team.



Tudor - M/BL
Raised by The Schwanitz Family
Returned to GDB 8 Jan 2009