Spotlight on Ohlone

Canines grant sight beyond sight

By Kathy Sung, Staff writer.

Thursday, April 10, 2008 — Monitor.

Thomas Matthews sits with a 'student.' — Photo courtesy of Thomas Matthews.

Thomas Matthews began training man’s best friend to become the best friend of a blind person in February 2007. He joined a program called Guide Dogs for the Blind at the suggestion of his mother. So far, Matthews has trained one guide dog and is beginning to raise a second one.

According to the program’s website, the process begins with an interview with the prospective dog trainers in their home. The trainers must meet certain requirements before a puppy will be given over to their care. The main caregiver must be at least nine years of age, provide the puppy with a place to sleep inside and agree to leash him in non-secure areas.

The dog must be trained to listen to commands such as sit and stay and learn to be even better toilet trained than other puppies. A trainer is in charge of teaching “them to not beg for food, eat things on the floor or get distracted by anything and everything”. Most puppies stay for 14 to 16 weeks with their trainers.

Matthews, after training Biscotti, switched to Rusa in February. Biscotti will now go through more intensive training including learning how to stop at a curb and in front of stairs and avoiding obstacles. Matthews believes one of the most important things the guide dogs learn is to disobey an owner’s command when there might be danger to the blind person.s

The kennel chooses the dogs’ names. Usually, there’s a person with a long list of names and every dog is systematically assigned a name. Matthews commented that his previous dog, Biscotti was better behaved. After his experience in raising and training dogs, he said he is surprised that owners allows their dogs to be so badly behaved because after going through the program, he realized that “you can pretty much change any problem for a dog.”

Some memorable moments Matthews related involving his dogs include a time when he was walking into a track meet and a person jumped at him and told him to go away. He had to go back to the meet without the dog in order to be admitted. According to California state law, serving dogs are allowed anywhere except on escalators. However, when it comes to guide dogs in training, the decison is generally up to the shop owners or school.

Another memory involved a friend of Matthews who decided to close his eyes and simply follow Biscotti around. His friend followed the puppy around in circles. Unlike some people assume, the dogs don’t know where to go or how to read road signs. They just follow their owners around, protecting them from dangers such as cars and sudden changes in elevation.

Matthews believes training guide is an important thing to do. “When people are blind, it’s really hard to do things. People are so visually oriented, it’s really hard. Cars, things like that…dogs allow them to get out and do things. It really changes someone’s life”. These dogs go out to all countries in the world. At one of the graduations for guide dogs Matthews attended, one of the dogs was assigned to an owner in Japan. These dogs completely change the lives of their owners.

For more information on how to help out and start raising a guide dog puppy, go to www.guidedogs.com.

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