What to Expect
If you think learning to be a guide dog trainer means spending your day
playing with puppies, think again. New students and volunteers have to be
prepared to do hard time in the kennel.
"Working in the kennel is one of the hardest jobs I've ever had in my life,"
says Lori McCrystal. "It's very physical work. It's a lot of cleaning
and grooming dogs. You have to scrub the kennels and pick up poop."
McCrystal volunteered in a special skills dog program. She began working
there on a co-op basis during her final year of high school as part of a pilot
project.
For McCrystal, the most frustrating part of her volunteer experience was
realizing that learning how to train dogs and the training itself takes time
and can't be rushed.
"Working with the dogs is probably the best part," she says. She
worked with a couple dogs on basic obedience. That's to prepare them for the
fact that as special skills dogs, they'll be expected to do things such as
picking up keys and opening doors for people in wheelchairs.
Kim Stasheff did an apprenticeship at the Guide Dog Foundation for the
Blind in New York and loved it. "I enjoy walking, especially outdoors, with
the dogs. I enjoy interacting with the blind students who come to learn to
use the dogs," she says. "Seeing the difference your work makes in a blind
person's life is really rewarding."
Of course, the training process has its negative moments too. "Sometimes
it's not fun to walk outside when the weather isn't nice," Stasheff admits.
"Injuries do happen and frustrations between staff or between staff and
dogs do occur. The hours can be long and the vacations short at times,
especially in the early years. We don't make a lot of money."
How to Prepare
The secret to success is one word: volunteering. "Volunteering with
people with disabilities, if they're blind or deaf or in wheelchairs," says
McCrystal. "Even volunteering in an old age home or a nursing home helps.
Working in a vet's office is great too because we have to know when there's
something wrong with the dog."