As part of their training, guide dogs must grow accustomed to the range of human experience - including flight.
By SUSAN ASCHOFF
Published June 26, 2004
[Times photos: Willie J. Allen Jr.]
Opti, with Marcy Harrod, looks into the evening sky earlier this week at one of the small planes transporting guide dogs in training at Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg.
Guide dog raiser DeEtte Collett watches her Labrador retriever, Josh, look out over St. Petersburg after leaving Albert Whitted Airport. Pat Gorman and her puppy, Muff, ride in the back. The dogs in training normally are not allowed on furniture, but there was not room on the floor for Josh.
Opti (short for Optimist), an Australian shepherd, plays with Debbie, a yellow Labrador retriever, while waiting for their flights.
Trainers and their puppies walk around Alfred Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg earlier this week before taking their training flight with the Experimental Aircraft Association's local chapter.
ST. PETERSBURG - A first-time flier, Tex's head snaps to attention when the chop-chopping engine of the Cessna turns over, the deafening drone filling the cabin. His soft brown eyes scan back and forth, though he is too short to see out the windows as the plane climbs over downtown St. Petersburg. Pushing his long, thin nose into the space between the front seats, Tex smells the gasoline and sweat of a humidity-drenched dusk.
Then, minutes later, before the tiny plane passes over the strip of white sand in the Gulf of Mexico 1,000 feet below, Tex wedges himself on the vibrating floor in the back, his chin resting in the cupped hand of his companion on the seat above him.
"He did exactly what he was supposed to do. I'm so proud," Jan DeGraw-Higgins pronounces as the plane finally rolls to a stop at Albert Whitted Airport.
Tex, a short-coat collie, has passed yet another test in his two-year training to become a guide dog for the blind. Higgins removes the dog's vest, worn when he is working, and ruffles his ears.
"Tex was born," she says, "to be a service dog."
On a warm evening this week, 20 dogs, puppies to 18-month-olds, took to the skies. It was the first time the Experimental Aircraft Association's local chapter, which has introduced more than 2,000 children to flying, ferried dogs. Chapter members think it is the first time in the country dogs have been passengers in the program.
Four small planes went up, down, and up again on 10-minute flights with students from Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc. of Palmetto. The organization breeds guide dogs for the visually impaired, first placing the 9-week-old puppies with "puppy raiser" families for a year to two of socialization and training, followed by six more months of professional training at the school.
Only then are the dogs matched with an owner for training as a pair.
The family's task is to take the dog everywhere, from restaurants to medical appointments to high school. The visually impaired travel, so the dogs must, too.
Tex attends Church by the Sea in Madeira Beach. He introduced himself to the congregation by trotting up the aisle when a soloist hit a high note, a lapse in discipline forgiven because he was then just a pup.
"It's a blessing," says Higgins, "to watch him grow and mature."
Awaiting their turn, the passengers jam a room adjacent to the apron. A bit wired, they introduce themselves with nose touches and the obligatory sniffing before plopping on the floor, panting but silent.
"She's very sweet, but she's really got an attitude," says Connie Kenneth of Chelsea, a yellow Labrador.
When on duty, wearing the blue vest that identifies a guide dog, a dog is not to eat or drink or even relieve himself without permission. Games of tug of war or fetch are forbidden, so a dog will not be tempted to go off-task when guiding.
Chelsea is trying to master the required "sit" before going through a door.
Raisers must be firm. "We have to be the alpha dog," says Kenneth.
Locky, an 18-month-old black lab, "messed up the living room" before his family brought him to the airport, pushing the rug into ripples, says 11-year-old Steven Mahan. But "if he doesn't have his vest on, he can be bad," allows Mahan.
Seven-month-old Esther is still a little frisky. But her only faux pas on the flight, and it's debatable, was drooling on Florence Barnett's thigh. The Australian shepherd is the 74-year-old Dunedin resident's third guide puppy. "The only way you can give them back" to be matched with an owner "is to take another one to love," Barnett says.
Josh flew on an airline at Christmas with raiser DeEtte Collett. At the security checkpoint, Collett had to remove the black lab's vest and leash, leaving Josh to sit and stay as she walked through first. Collett takes Josh to her teaching job at Jefferson High School in Tampa. "He can de-escalate a kid better than anything else," she says.
Dogs in training are not allowed on furniture. On the commercial flight, Josh lay on the floor on top of Collett's feet and those of the amiable passenger next to her. On one leg of the trip they were bumped to first class, where Josh had more room. And a pillow.
A would-be guide dog may flunk out because of poor health or temperament. One dog was eliminated because it shied from the cold air of refrigerated cases at the supermarket. Another couldn't handle baby strollers.
But to the dog, those at Albert Whitted were calm and focused amid the chaos, even unperturbed by the push to their rump that was sometimes needed to get them aboard.
"She slept the whole time," said raiser Pat Gorman of 1-year-old Muff upon disembarking.
