Guide Dog

Guide dogs (colloquially known in the US as seeing-eye dogs) are assistance dogs trained to lead blind or visually impaired people around obstacles. Although dogs can be trained to navigate various obstacles, they are red–green colour blind and incapable of interpreting street signs. The human does the directing, based on skills acquired through previous mobility training. The handler might be likened to an aircraft's navigator, who must know how to get from one place to another, and the dog is the pilot, who gets them there safely. In several countries guide dogs, along with most other service and hearing dogs, are exempt from regulations against the presence of animals in places such as restaurants and public transportation.

History

References to service animals date at least as far back as the mid-16th century. The second line of the popular verse alphabet "A was an Archer" is most commonly "B was a Blind-man/Led by a dog". In Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 19th-century verse novel '' Aurora Leigh'', the title character remarks, "The blind man walks wherever the dog pulls / And so I answered." Guide dogs are also mentioned in Charles Dickens' ''A Christmas Carol'': "Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!

Evidence suggests that dogs may have been used as guides for the visually impaired based on depictions of a blind-man being guided by his dog on the wal