How does a guide dog know where to go?
Question
How does a guide dog know where to go when it directs a blind person? How do they find their way? Are they like sat-navs?
Idris, Watford
Answer
** Self-definitive ** - REVOKED!
Name: James O’Brien
Qualification: Someone’s asked it before!
Answer: Guide dogs have a specific number of places which they know the route for their owner. You can ask them to go to one of these, but couldn’t rely on you to take them anywhere else.
** Definitive **
Name: Paul, Woking
Qualification: I once asked a guide dog trainer as I was interested.
Answer: You’re wrong. It’s not the guide dog that knows where it is going, it’s the owner. When they are going somewhere, the dog actually trains the owner to know how many paces, where to stop, what to feel for with his stick. The guide dog is there simply to stop the owner bumping into things.