Then the Seeing Eye dog is matched with a blind person. The two train together in a 27-day session together with a sighted instructor. Finally the two are sent off into the world. It is common for the instructor to go with the pair for the first week. The average working life for a seeing eye dog is seven to eight years, though many have lived and worked for ten or eleven. Retired dogs may be kept as pets or returned to the Seeing Eye Academy.
Training a K-9 is a never-ending process. The dog is commonly put through short training sessions even in its older years to keep its senses and skills sharp. The most important thing about the working police dog is its relationship with its handler. The dog cannot be moved from person to person. It is stuck with the same handler for the rest of its working life. The same goes for a Seeing Eye dog.
With both types of working dogs, the greatest difficulty users encounter is public interference, which confuses not only the dog but the handler as well. The dogs are meant to be working, and little kids or adults distracting or interfering ruins their work and their purpose. Someone grabbing a Seeing Eye dog's harness would distract either the dog or its owner and would be like grabbing the steering wheel of a car from the driver. A K-9 dog is trained to suspect people and be on alert, so grabbing for one could lead to an attack or injury and further confuse the K-9.
Only dogs trained by The Seeing Eye Inc. are properly called Seeing Eye dogs. There are various other dog schools that train guide dogs, but the official Seeing Eye dogs are from The Seeing Eye Inc. K-9s are trained in numerous areas around the country. There are specific schools for different specialties located in different areas as well.
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