About Guide Dogs - Information for young people

People who cannot see at all, or whose sight is very poor, can find some things hard to do, without some help.

One of their biggest challenges is getting around. Watch the Amazing Jouneys Video on our Guide Dogs You Tube page. Now imagine crossing a busy road when you can’t see the traffic. Imagine walking past bus stops, parked cars, pushchairs and bicycles that you cannot see.

A guide dog enables its blind or partially-sighted owner to get around safely and independently.

It guides its owner in a straight line, unless told otherwise, avoiding obstacles – including those at the owner’s head height. It will stop at kerbs and steps and find doors, crossings and places that are visited regularly. It will guide its owner across the road, but it is the owner who decides where and when to cross safely.

The guide dog and its owner are a partnership, with the owner giving commands and encouragement and telling the dog which way to go. 

Most of our work is breeding, training and providing guide dogs, but also:

• We help hundreds of blind and partially sighted adults and children, to help them get to grips with life without good sight – for example, cooking the dinner or getting around using a long cane.
• We work to make it easier for blind and partially-sighted people to enjoy working, travelling by bus, train or aeroplane, and shopping.
• We tell people about the dangers of obstacles in the street and bad street designs.
• Invest in studies on dog health, welfare and behaviour.

Ten things we bet you don’t know about Guide Dogs!

1. We’ve been providing guide dogs to blind and partially-sighted people for more than 75 years.
2. Guide dogs work for around six and a half years before they retire, and many guide dog owners have several different dogs during their lifetime.
3. We promise to look after every one of our puppies, working guide dogs, guide dog ‘mums’ and ‘dads’ and retired guide dogs for their whole lives.
4. We couldn’t do our work without our 10,000 wonderful volunteers, who do all sorts of really important things to help us – from looking after our puppies before they go to Guide Dog Training School, to raising money.
5. We want blind and partially-sighted people to be able to do all the things everyone else does. We talk to important people like MPs to make sure streets are safe for blind and partially-sighted people, and that guide dog owners can take their dogs into shops and restaurants, for example.
6. Most guide dogs are Labradors and retrievers – or crosses between those two breeds – but we also use other breeds, including German shepherds, Leonbergers and labradoodles (a cross between a Labrador and a poodle!).
7. We help blind and partially-sighted children to make the most of their education, and join in games, clubs and sports.
8. Each guide dog owner pays just 50p for their dog. This is because we want everyone whose life could be better with a guide dog to be able to have one.
9. People raise money for Guide Dogs in loads of different ways – including running a marathon, having a fancy dress party, Sponsor a Puppy and recycling mobile phones and printer cartridges.
10. Children can learn all about Guide Dogs, what we do, how we train our dogs and what it’s like to be blind or partially-sighted through our new Guide Dogs at School event. There’s lots of cool activities groovy posters and stickers. And, if you’re lucky, your teacher might be able to arrange for someone to visit your school and tell you all about Guide Dogs – they might even bring a guide dog with them!

http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/guidedogsatschool