Rewards-led training program behind long waits for UK guide dogs, says advocate | Blindness and visual disability

The letter is requiring the charity, which is the biggest fitness instructor of dogs in the nation, to reassess a training program carried out in 2017, which it blames for the decrease in the variety of guide dogs.

Its author is Alan Brooks, who has actually won 2 significant awards for his deal with guide dogs over 50 years, consisting of establishing training programs in Europe and management functions at Guide Dogs UK.

Warning that the falling varieties of dogs represent “a loss of independent mobility” for blind individuals, he composed that the Standard Training for Effective Partnerships (Step) dog training program was carried out in 2017, the exact same year numbers began falling.

“The new programme isn’t working. Basically, the system is a non-punishment system, so you’re not even allowed to say no to a dog in a firm voice if it does something wrong – as a result dogs aren’t getting through the training programme and the population of guide dog owners has dropped by 25%,” he said, including that he thinks a rewards-based system works just for specific characters of dog.

He said that lots of knowledgable training staff and puppy-walking volunteers he had actually spoken with idea Step was “ineffective and their efforts are wasted”, leading them to end up being “demotivated and demoralised”.

Noting that there are varying views on training dogs, Guide Dogs UK protected its approaches as “based on the highest level of dog welfare and prioritise the wellbeing and safety of the guide dog and its owner”.

A representative said: “This welfare-centric, rewards-led approach is now the favoured international standard and highly regarded by experts both in the UK and around the world, including the RSPCA, Dogs Trust, International Guide Dog Federation [IGDF] and Assistance Dogs International [ADI].

“We are proud to use ethical, evidence-based practices which maintain the highest level of dog welfare. We make no apologies for eliminating physical punishment or techniques which are proven to cause fear and stress to dogs. Our firm and unwavering view is that society has progressed and that we must move with the times.”

The charity has actually blamed a few of the hold-ups on the Covid pandemic, which stopped briefly breeding, training and socialising. As well as less dogs, the variety of those making it through the procedure dropped from 65% to less than 50% – the most affordable in years – and the typical waiting time for a guide dog increased to 18 months.

Guide Dogs UK said success rates were recuperating, with 61% of dogs certifying to end up being guide dogs for the very first quarter of 2023 compared to about 70% prior to the pandemic.

While there is much appreciation for the work that Guide Dogs UK does, disappointment with its present service is shared by lots of in the blind neighborhood, consisting of David Adams, the chair of the European Guide Dog Federation, who shares Brooks’s issues about the training program. Sarah Leadbetter, the nationwide projects officer at National Federation of the Blind of the UK, believes the charity requires to interact much better with its volunteers and train more of them.

Leadbetter has actually experienced the long waits for guide dogs herself: she needed to wait 14 months for her 2nd dog throughout the pandemic, and was at first matched with one she discovered inappropriate as it was too little and she did not feel it had actually been trained correctly.

“It was a bit of a mess,” she said, including that she didn’t feel things were “done in the same sort of way it would have been done before Covid”.

She thinks guide dogs are crucial for blind individuals, including: “If I hadn’t had two guide dogs I wouldn’t have done the things I’ve done, all the campaigning [for visually impaired people].”