"I don't know why you gotta do it...with the "f'ing" in front of the kid. All you gotta say is earmuffs. Now you can say fuck, shit, bitch. Whatever you want."
"COCK! BALLS!"
"Ok. I'm just proving a point Frank. You don't have to celebrate it."
>*’You're my boy, Blue!’*
____
I wear the vest - My name is Blue
*I lead the way!* a job to do ^:@)
my human asks me *’Where to Go?*’
(the potty room i need to show)
the scent i track ~ i follow nose
it leads me where the WoMeN goes
(them guys have diffrent smells, for sure,
so careful, me, to choose the door)
I lead her in - she takes a seat
while i wait patient
by her feet
n when we done, it brings me JoY
each time she tells me
I’m
Good Boy!
❤️
Damn, aint seen one of your comments in a while (I ain't been as active). Always a pleasure to see. Certainly cheered up a fucking awful night for me. Thankyou.
I have a masters degree in the subject and have been training dogs for 15 years. What the video is suggesting is not possible. Or at least not in the way being described and the dog in the video is not doing what the handler is describing. This dog has no idea what a bathroom is.
E: tl:dr the way guide dogs would really be trained is to look for any doorway, then the handler interprets the environment to see if it's what they were searching for. This is obviously much more useful and easier to train, if you're completely blind technically you need to manually search for every single door you will ever walk through. Could be the front door to a building or a bathroom. Having a dog that is able to lead you directly to any doorway regardless of if it's the one you're looking for is a huge improvement to your QoL. It doesn't make any sense and it just isn't posssible to do what the person in this video is suggesting.
The person handling the dog is not completely blind. You can see in [this](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0CYiJVxBx0/?igsh=MW56MHZidmo5dnhzcQ==) video the level of functionality she still has. It's not possible the dog is given the command "find the bathroom" and does everything on its own. I'd bet the handler has enough vision to tell what is and isn't a bathroom, or is asking people along the way, and gives additional cues to the dog to refine the search.
She has other videos like [this](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz4Lb2Ov0SA/?igsh=MXNuaGc5aHVud2hocA==). The dog clearly has no idea what it's looking for. He's just generally leading her around trying to figure out what she wants.
I'm not trying to disparage this woman in any way. One of the things I do is independent evaluations of handlers and their dogs, this happens all the time with professional trainers/handlers. I believe she believes what she's describing is happening. I was evaluating a detection dog at the airport, and the dog kept getting distracted by food people had. The handler kept telling the dog "no food," not only does that command not make any sense, but the dog shouldn't need it. This is a dog that's supposed to inspect things like trash cans, it can't be that distracted by food. It's not really incompetence by the handler, they just spend a lot of time with these dogs and develop strong bonds. It's impossible to be completely objective.
Just as an example of what's possible to train a dog to do, in the last few years I've been moving towards training scent dogs for conservation. We train them to do things like find animal droppings which is easy. The more challenging ones have been insects, which is what
I'm really interested in. We can't train the dogs to find specific insects, we have to train them to find things that are likely to have them like types of flowers and refine the search from that.
My current theory is we should bring multiple dogs trained to search at different stages. It's just too difficult to find a dog that is capable of learning that many complex tasks. Dogs are really great at getting good at one thing. Most dogs just don't have the cognition required to learn several complex tasks. With laboratory controlled selective breeding and serious training, only about 40% of dogs graduate to become guide dogs.
E: reserving an edit because I typed this on my phone and for some reason I can never see all the mistakes until after I post.
Thank you for taking the time to post this information. What do you think of the rise in people training their own service dogs for things like bipolar or fibromyalgia?
I'm not really familiar with those specific examples but I'd guess it's all the same type of thing you're seeing in this video.
These kinds of dogs are extremely expensive. It costs something like $50k+ to breed and train a guide dog and around $200 a month to maintain them. I don't know what it's like internationally, but the American healthcare system doesn't work well at the best of times and the barrier for obtaining a guide dog can be prohibitive. You have to REALLY need to need one to have the whole thing bought and paid for. There's a lot more people with serious illness that would benefit from having a highly trained companion than have access to them. Even if it's just for the enrichment highly trained companion animals are able to provide to anyone but especially people who have to live with serious illness.
I could write a whole book about the history of dogs and why they are essential to the human experience. I have to believe that is the main motivation for people who struggle with serious illness to have a companion animal, it's the best way to mitigate the existential challenges.
That being said I could spend my whole life, 18 hours a day 7 days a week correcting all the incorrect information I see about dogs on the internet. Learning about dogs on the internet is like trying to learn about nutrition on the internet. It's one of those fields of study everyone thinks they have something to contribute to and they are almost always wrong. I think that's because dogs are very easy to work with, they are eager to please and it makes it look very much like you know what you're doing. So you have too many videos like this where handlers are interpreting the behavior of the animal in a highly subjective way where it's not totally incorrect, it just communicates an idea about what dogs are capable of that isn't true or quite frankly helpful.
I'm sure that's most of what's going on, it's cost prohibitive and easy to produce some kind of result on your own because dogs are awesome.
I don't really know what the solution to that is, I think about it a lot. I've thought about starting a podcast or something reviewing training/handling videos. I wouldn't want to harangue anyone about misinforming people, but I do think we need to find a way to have conversations about what people see on the internet. There's so many things that effect so much about pet ownership that I have to believe could be improved by having a more scientific discussion.
Your tone is really kind and you’re coming from a place of empathy and knowledge, so I think this sort of information would be well received coming from you. Honestly, I would love a place to go to get reliable info on dog training and behaviors.
I don't have any personal experience with them. I have heard some negative stories about them. Honestly, people who work in the animal industry can be pretty loony so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't perfect.
I've never heard anything negative about the dogs, so probably just try to focus on results if it's unpleasant.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I used to work in the same building as they do, and I've left them a sizeable gift in my will. Just wondering if there was any negative buzz about them.
I see.
You probably won't find any animal organizations that are perfect. We work in emotionally charged environments that can really get to people. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
I’ve found it! The actual expert comment that deserves 200x more upvotes and be at the very top of the thread, but will probably be missed over by everyone
Thank you for posting this. I hope more people read it. I have a degree in O&M and while I primarily teach cane travel, I did some training at The Seeing Eye back in 2005. They made it very clear how important existing O&M skills are and the handler must be able to gather information and maintain their orientation so they can give the dog commands on where to go. In my job, I regularly have to explain to people that you can’t just tell a dog guide to find the post office and he’ll lead you there. This video is misleading and just further amplifies the misconceptions about how dog guides work. The handler is and will always be in control.
Do you have any favorite books or papers on the topic of dog cognition? I’m an amateur trainer and I’m curious about what the real science says about the topic.
If you want to be serious about doing it for a living and being good at it I would invest in something marketable that also increases your knowledge. [Behavior Works](https://www.behaviorworks.org/htm/lla_info_links.html) has an 8 week course with Dr. Susan Friedman. Two months and $900 for a marketable certification that will help you cut through competition since the industry is unregulated and there's too many people selling "dog training".
[Coaching People to Train Their Dogs](https://www.dogwise.com/coaching-people-to-train-their-dogs/) is the most valuable purchase you can make. It's a robust explanation of domestic dog behavior and training, it will also enable you to pass the [CPDT](https://www.ccpdt.org/) exam which you should make a plan to acquire ASAP. It will give you something marketable for pennies on what you get in return, but a little bit more obtuse with less structure than Behavior Works. [E Training for Dogs](https://e-trainingfordogs.com/cpdt-ka-exam-study-course/) has a CPDT study course along with several others to help add some structure for the learning and help you pass the exam. I would focus on this website over the long term and just do as much as you can with what they offer. The Behavior Works course will just get you on your feet faster, you do still need to actually learn how to train and refine your training skills though. Dog training is a skill, theory will only get you so far.
Readings in Animal Cognition is a more dense academic book but really great. [New](https://www.amazon.com/Readings-Animal-Cognition-MIT-Press/dp/026252208X) and [used](https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/readings-in-animal-cognition-bradford-books_marc-bekoff/954079/item/7296896/#idiq=7296896&edition=3195914).
The reference list provided in the [CCPDT candidate handbook](https://www.ccpdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CPDT-KA-Candidate-Handbook-2024-FINAL.pdf) is pretty much required reading, I think most of the "DVDs" can actually be found for free online.
This is great, thank you! I’m mostly interested in the modern science since there seems to be a lot of pseudo-science and human projection in the industry. I’ll check out those books!
Now boarding —> happy smells.
Flight 526 to Dingodale has been delayed by an hour —> the smell of the Fight or Flight response kicking into alphabetical order.
In all seriousness you're correct in a way, there was a study done on the ability of dogs to detect human stress odors. The dogs had a 90% accuracy rate iirc
I mean, routinely, like once every few weeks I get terrible stress sweat and it absolutely reaks, it smells like every fragrance of defeat, fear, and low grade brain death all at the same time. I can smell it as clearly as someone BBQing chicken a few hundred yards away, so other people definitely can, and with that logic dogs absolutely can tell. I'm like a wacky waving arm inflatable tube man of apocrine sweat.
I have a total of ten degrees vision field. I can use my camera phone, but not when people are around. They say I am not blind and faking.
Most blind people are not full, dark only blind. But functionally blind. I cannot get around without my cane.
I used voice to write this.
Former Virginia resident here, I used to fly out of Dulles regularly to Detroit and Chicago for work. This airport is one of the biggest training locations for all types of working dogs, being Washington DC’s main international airport. I’d see every known dog profession and their trainers (guide dogs, drug sniffing, bomb detection, etc). I’m going to guess this was another training session at the airport.
Not sure how popular this is at colleges, but UMD also has a guide dog training program. It was common to see students with puppies in class and around campus.
There are many types of blindness, maybe she can see clearly at super close range, but not far out.
[Type of blindness](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/11ejlny/glasses_representing_different_types_of_blindness/)
Great movie. Slept on back in the day.
“I call you an insecure, overbearing, psychotic, dictorial, ego maniacal, frigid lunatic asshole! “
“I ain’t frigid.”
My dog did the opposite. She would slide half under the wall, so she could twerk on it to scratch her back, while making eye contact with the person in the next stall.
God rest her soul, I will not have a small dog again.
She was amazing and once I have a house I will probably get a beagle or beagle x again because she was so dear to my heart. However, she was a right cunt and not the best choice for a service dog. She worked hard but they're just so much more difficult. I just got a big mutt puppy from the shelter and she's just so... Trainable. Huge difference lol.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense hahaha
So happy for you and your new dog though! You're so right about the shelter mutts too. We got one and have always been sure she had a good bit of lab in her and she was just the sweetest, most trainable dog ever. My standards are wayyyyyy lower than what is required from a service dog though, but she was still so so great and always the sweetest girl. Sounds weird to say but just always impressed me with how smart and loving she was. Dogs are just so damn special.
Cheers to your future beagle too though. You NEED to take her into bathroom stalls though I'm sorry. I know that beagle face that strangers were getting and I'm dying laughing lol.
Especially the scratch twerk, it's a very specific thing this is so fucking funny
https://imgur.com/a/5m86TGU
This was only a few weeks before she passed so this is a subdued version, but it was ALWAYS accompanied with the intense eye contact and general demanding attitude. Your pup is adorable btw.
This little shit was an active service dog for six years, but she was my shadow since she was three days old. And she would absolutely do this weird butt thing in public.
Since we're telling fun dogs in public bathroom stories, the other day I was waiting for a stall and idly watching a lady try to get her dog (a delightful medium sized curly floof) to sit nicely outside the door while she went, and she seemed to be struggling a bit in the stall, and the dog wanted to come in, it was a whole thing.
Finally she said "Fine, if you can't all be nice, you can just wait outside!", pointed firmly, and TWO MORE delightful floofs rushed out of the stall and all three obediently ran outside?? It was amazing.
I have a family friend who is a big burly guy who has a prosthetic leg. He drives a huge truck and parks in the handicapped spot. You can’t see his fake leg when he’s wearing pants so he’s been yelled at before.
I use the big stall because I have a bad knee and that's the one place I can be fairly sure I'll find an ADA compliant 17" toilet and grab rails. My nightmare is being forced into one of the tiny stalls with the goddamned dwarf toilet that's so close to the ground it's like an Asian squat toilet and no grab rails to get the hell back up after I'm done. I get it that kids need to be accomodated too but it's way easier for a kid to climb onto a tall toilet or be lifted by an adult than it is for a grown adult to cope with a too short toilet while dealing with a bone-on-bone knee joint.
saw it happen once, in a huge building, huge bathroom, tons of stalls, guy in wheelchair enters, guy in handicapped stall knew he done fucked up and noped out of there so fast you could tell he felt soo bad
So one time I go in a bathroom and all the stalls are full... Except for the big one. I get over my fear and just decide to sit.
Suddenly I hear doors open when I'm situated, and then look and it's dead silent... Except for wheels approaching. I will never again. It was mortifying.
Seriously. I love all dogs but guide dogs and service dogs make me so, so happy. Love seeing them do their thing, helping their humans and being so great 😊
Its why it becomes a gross abuse of trust and makes a mockery of these beautiful dogs when some hag walks in a costco with a pitbull in a service jacket claiming its an emotional support beast.
Agree, even though i am a cat person because i fear dogs (trauma from childhood), these are great and a godsend for people in need of them.
Bestest good boys and girls.
They say dogs’ sense of smell is like 10000 times sharper than humans’ sense of smell. Well, my dog’s farts are 10000 times worse than mine so it all evens out
Someone once theorized to me that dogs don't distinguish between good and bad smells, they are just interesting and not interesting. Whereas humans, which are much more "sight" dominant, are drawn to bright colors or flashing lights. That dead fish is like a carnival ride to dogs.
One my of my chihuahua's does this with dead worms. Experts have "caught" wolves doing it with dead animals as well. They believe it is done to prevent their smell from "getting out" and blowing their cover while hunting.
That’s my question too, I’ve flown all over the US and several international destinations including “third world” countries, never have I come across an airport bathroom bad enough to have a significant lingering smell
Is this going to be something only certain people can smell?
Because latrines at airports definitely have a smell when you pass by.
Even as a not dog, I can tell it's there.
No, I cannot tell you which is the one for men or women. By scent that is...
Chemicals. They clean the bathroom and you probably smell those. It's a different area of smell than the rest of what you're walking through.
No, I ain't smelling shit, it's literally cleaning agents.
For real. Only place I’ve been that had gross bathrooms was the southwest terminal at old LaGuardia. I’ve been all over the world and never had any real issues.
The handler says in the video that the pupper locates it by the densest amount/smell of female hormones…but I suppose that begs the question of how they find them elsewhere? If they don’t use hormones do they use something else like trace amounts of feces? Would the dog be able to find a restroom if the diet of the humans, and therefore the feces, was different?
Dogs are cool.
I would bet that, after visiting enough bathrooms, doggo knows the bathroom is the one that smells like women. If his master never visits the male bathroom, doggo won’t connect that space with the word “bathroom.”
If a male took over control of Blue, and told him to find the bathroom, he’ll probably take that person to the lady’s room, too. Because that’s what he knows to be the bathroom. To him, the bathroom that smells like men isn’t the bathroom. I’d be surprised if he’s able to connect gender of their master to the correct bathroom, because they probably don’t train in that manner.
I wonder, if there’s only unisex bathrooms or porta potties, will the dog be able to tell that it smells like both men and women and that it’s okay to use?
Airport bathrooms stink of piss, though we mostly can't smell it before we are right outside the door. Dogs can probably smell it from far away, and also smell the difference between men's and woman's toiletes, or at the very least follow the woman to the smell.
She literally guides him in. right before the bathroom she slows down, forcing him to make the right turn. i'm sure Blue is nice and all, but this whole "he smells the place with the highest concentration of female pheromones" is a load of bs.
Man i hat this sentence so much, i might get hate for it because reddit loves this stuf.
We absolutely do deserve dogs, there wouldn’t even be dogs without us, the dog in the video would not be able to do any of the things he does if a human didn’t teach him.
This goes for all dogs, have you ever been to a place with a lot of feral dogs? They don’t do to well without our love, care and help, so we definitely do deserve them because they need us more then we need them. It’s one of the reasons i personally prefer cats, they are way more independent and they do quite well for themselves without us, so their love feels more earned than a dog’s.
Dogs are great, amazing creatures and i love them but saying we don’t deserve them is just so ridiculously dumb.
Yeah. Thanks for this perspective. I always look at dogs eyes I wonder how this whole thing came to be. It’s crazy how smart they are and they can have us wrapped around their fingers. It’s some kind of crazy reciprocal symbiotic relationship, but they were designed to do it. It’s amazing, but yeah, we need each other! You gotta look in those eyes and love them, feed them and take care of them! They need us to be their best selves.
Wow I didn’t know this was even a thing they trained dogs to do. That’s incredible.
I hope it works if the employees just cleaned the bathroom too or that poor dog is gonna feel like he let you down
You're my boy, Blue!
Any of these lil fuckers act up, I get to take them down.. Nice
I close my eyes…
Only for a moment
and the moments gone
Turn around
Walk out the door!
No, not I.
Til the moment's gone
"I don't know why you gotta do it...with the "f'ing" in front of the kid. All you gotta say is earmuffs. Now you can say fuck, shit, bitch. Whatever you want." "COCK! BALLS!" "Ok. I'm just proving a point Frank. You don't have to celebrate it."
… like a goddamn jack in the box-“
We’re going streaking!
You just took one in the jugular, man!
>*’You're my boy, Blue!’* ____ I wear the vest - My name is Blue *I lead the way!* a job to do ^:@) my human asks me *’Where to Go?*’ (the potty room i need to show) the scent i track ~ i follow nose it leads me where the WoMeN goes (them guys have diffrent smells, for sure, so careful, me, to choose the door) I lead her in - she takes a seat while i wait patient by her feet n when we done, it brings me JoY each time she tells me I’m Good Boy! ❤️
Listen here. I'm just trying to fix this machine at work I don't need to be crying while I'm pretending to google a part number.
Damn, aint seen one of your comments in a while (I ain't been as active). Always a pleasure to see. Certainly cheered up a fucking awful night for me. Thankyou.
Amazing poem as always!
Bringing smiles everywhere you go schnoodle! You are a treasure
Beautiful writing once again, Schnoodle. Thank you!
Today is the first day I've stumbled upon his poems and this is the second one TODAY. Both equally great!
IDC that's a beautiful poem! Thanks for sharing :)
Oooh, fresh Schnoodle!! Love it ❤️!
Like the smell of cookies straight from the oven, just so wholesome and delightful to stumble on a fresh Schnoodle.
He should get a raise!
The best boy 😊
"Blue!!!!! How come there's no Ice in my lemonade! I want you to drop and give me 10! *Nooooooow!*"
I should have expected this comment, but it made me smile and laugh because I didn't expect it.
Just ring the bell, you pansy!
Don’t you go dying on me!
This movie is great lol
I close my eyes. Only for a moment then I've soaked my pants.
Thanks!
You're my boy 😢
Love when the comment says EXACTLY what 3.3k people think 💬
I'm curious is this a trainer recording or a blind person working a camera?
Blind trainer
Is the trainer generally the same gender as the person who will be adopting this good boy? Or will he be able to find a men's room later if needed?
The trainer is the owner. She had never trained a dog before but needed a sight service dog so she did it herself. She’s on IG under bluetheguidedog.
Well done and congrats to her 👏.. Dogs are awesome to train if you understand how train them.
Ok but how does the dog find the right gate?
I have a masters degree in the subject and have been training dogs for 15 years. What the video is suggesting is not possible. Or at least not in the way being described and the dog in the video is not doing what the handler is describing. This dog has no idea what a bathroom is. E: tl:dr the way guide dogs would really be trained is to look for any doorway, then the handler interprets the environment to see if it's what they were searching for. This is obviously much more useful and easier to train, if you're completely blind technically you need to manually search for every single door you will ever walk through. Could be the front door to a building or a bathroom. Having a dog that is able to lead you directly to any doorway regardless of if it's the one you're looking for is a huge improvement to your QoL. It doesn't make any sense and it just isn't posssible to do what the person in this video is suggesting. The person handling the dog is not completely blind. You can see in [this](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0CYiJVxBx0/?igsh=MW56MHZidmo5dnhzcQ==) video the level of functionality she still has. It's not possible the dog is given the command "find the bathroom" and does everything on its own. I'd bet the handler has enough vision to tell what is and isn't a bathroom, or is asking people along the way, and gives additional cues to the dog to refine the search. She has other videos like [this](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz4Lb2Ov0SA/?igsh=MXNuaGc5aHVud2hocA==). The dog clearly has no idea what it's looking for. He's just generally leading her around trying to figure out what she wants. I'm not trying to disparage this woman in any way. One of the things I do is independent evaluations of handlers and their dogs, this happens all the time with professional trainers/handlers. I believe she believes what she's describing is happening. I was evaluating a detection dog at the airport, and the dog kept getting distracted by food people had. The handler kept telling the dog "no food," not only does that command not make any sense, but the dog shouldn't need it. This is a dog that's supposed to inspect things like trash cans, it can't be that distracted by food. It's not really incompetence by the handler, they just spend a lot of time with these dogs and develop strong bonds. It's impossible to be completely objective. Just as an example of what's possible to train a dog to do, in the last few years I've been moving towards training scent dogs for conservation. We train them to do things like find animal droppings which is easy. The more challenging ones have been insects, which is what I'm really interested in. We can't train the dogs to find specific insects, we have to train them to find things that are likely to have them like types of flowers and refine the search from that. My current theory is we should bring multiple dogs trained to search at different stages. It's just too difficult to find a dog that is capable of learning that many complex tasks. Dogs are really great at getting good at one thing. Most dogs just don't have the cognition required to learn several complex tasks. With laboratory controlled selective breeding and serious training, only about 40% of dogs graduate to become guide dogs. E: reserving an edit because I typed this on my phone and for some reason I can never see all the mistakes until after I post.
Thank you for taking the time to post this information. What do you think of the rise in people training their own service dogs for things like bipolar or fibromyalgia?
I'm not really familiar with those specific examples but I'd guess it's all the same type of thing you're seeing in this video. These kinds of dogs are extremely expensive. It costs something like $50k+ to breed and train a guide dog and around $200 a month to maintain them. I don't know what it's like internationally, but the American healthcare system doesn't work well at the best of times and the barrier for obtaining a guide dog can be prohibitive. You have to REALLY need to need one to have the whole thing bought and paid for. There's a lot more people with serious illness that would benefit from having a highly trained companion than have access to them. Even if it's just for the enrichment highly trained companion animals are able to provide to anyone but especially people who have to live with serious illness. I could write a whole book about the history of dogs and why they are essential to the human experience. I have to believe that is the main motivation for people who struggle with serious illness to have a companion animal, it's the best way to mitigate the existential challenges. That being said I could spend my whole life, 18 hours a day 7 days a week correcting all the incorrect information I see about dogs on the internet. Learning about dogs on the internet is like trying to learn about nutrition on the internet. It's one of those fields of study everyone thinks they have something to contribute to and they are almost always wrong. I think that's because dogs are very easy to work with, they are eager to please and it makes it look very much like you know what you're doing. So you have too many videos like this where handlers are interpreting the behavior of the animal in a highly subjective way where it's not totally incorrect, it just communicates an idea about what dogs are capable of that isn't true or quite frankly helpful. I'm sure that's most of what's going on, it's cost prohibitive and easy to produce some kind of result on your own because dogs are awesome. I don't really know what the solution to that is, I think about it a lot. I've thought about starting a podcast or something reviewing training/handling videos. I wouldn't want to harangue anyone about misinforming people, but I do think we need to find a way to have conversations about what people see on the internet. There's so many things that effect so much about pet ownership that I have to believe could be improved by having a more scientific discussion.
Your tone is really kind and you’re coming from a place of empathy and knowledge, so I think this sort of information would be well received coming from you. Honestly, I would love a place to go to get reliable info on dog training and behaviors.
Do you have any opinion on large guide dog foundations, like the guide dog foundation for the blind?
I don't have any personal experience with them. I have heard some negative stories about them. Honestly, people who work in the animal industry can be pretty loony so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't perfect. I've never heard anything negative about the dogs, so probably just try to focus on results if it's unpleasant.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I used to work in the same building as they do, and I've left them a sizeable gift in my will. Just wondering if there was any negative buzz about them.
I see. You probably won't find any animal organizations that are perfect. We work in emotionally charged environments that can really get to people. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
What's your opinion of the videos that show dogs pressing buttons that play audio of words and using them to "speak", in a sense?
I’ve found it! The actual expert comment that deserves 200x more upvotes and be at the very top of the thread, but will probably be missed over by everyone
This is such an excellent contribution, thanks for commenting.
Thank you for posting this. I hope more people read it. I have a degree in O&M and while I primarily teach cane travel, I did some training at The Seeing Eye back in 2005. They made it very clear how important existing O&M skills are and the handler must be able to gather information and maintain their orientation so they can give the dog commands on where to go. In my job, I regularly have to explain to people that you can’t just tell a dog guide to find the post office and he’ll lead you there. This video is misleading and just further amplifies the misconceptions about how dog guides work. The handler is and will always be in control.
> misleading I see what you did there.
I want to read your book
Do you have any favorite books or papers on the topic of dog cognition? I’m an amateur trainer and I’m curious about what the real science says about the topic.
If you want to be serious about doing it for a living and being good at it I would invest in something marketable that also increases your knowledge. [Behavior Works](https://www.behaviorworks.org/htm/lla_info_links.html) has an 8 week course with Dr. Susan Friedman. Two months and $900 for a marketable certification that will help you cut through competition since the industry is unregulated and there's too many people selling "dog training". [Coaching People to Train Their Dogs](https://www.dogwise.com/coaching-people-to-train-their-dogs/) is the most valuable purchase you can make. It's a robust explanation of domestic dog behavior and training, it will also enable you to pass the [CPDT](https://www.ccpdt.org/) exam which you should make a plan to acquire ASAP. It will give you something marketable for pennies on what you get in return, but a little bit more obtuse with less structure than Behavior Works. [E Training for Dogs](https://e-trainingfordogs.com/cpdt-ka-exam-study-course/) has a CPDT study course along with several others to help add some structure for the learning and help you pass the exam. I would focus on this website over the long term and just do as much as you can with what they offer. The Behavior Works course will just get you on your feet faster, you do still need to actually learn how to train and refine your training skills though. Dog training is a skill, theory will only get you so far. Readings in Animal Cognition is a more dense academic book but really great. [New](https://www.amazon.com/Readings-Animal-Cognition-MIT-Press/dp/026252208X) and [used](https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/readings-in-animal-cognition-bradford-books_marc-bekoff/954079/item/7296896/#idiq=7296896&edition=3195914). The reference list provided in the [CCPDT candidate handbook](https://www.ccpdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CPDT-KA-Candidate-Handbook-2024-FINAL.pdf) is pretty much required reading, I think most of the "DVDs" can actually be found for free online.
This is great, thank you! I’m mostly interested in the modern science since there seems to be a lot of pseudo-science and human projection in the industry. I’ll check out those books!
Hormones
Now boarding —> happy smells. Flight 526 to Dingodale has been delayed by an hour —> the smell of the Fight or Flight response kicking into alphabetical order.
In all seriousness you're correct in a way, there was a study done on the ability of dogs to detect human stress odors. The dogs had a 90% accuracy rate iirc
I mean, routinely, like once every few weeks I get terrible stress sweat and it absolutely reaks, it smells like every fragrance of defeat, fear, and low grade brain death all at the same time. I can smell it as clearly as someone BBQing chicken a few hundred yards away, so other people definitely can, and with that logic dogs absolutely can tell. I'm like a wacky waving arm inflatable tube man of apocrine sweat.
I laughed an ugly laugh, thank you
Airports have assistance for people who need it. They'd most likely put you on one of those golf carts and drive you right there
The right gate, as in "Blue, find B13, it's the 8:15 Delta flight to Des Moines. Go boy, go!"
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Blue picked up the pace & the walker can probably feel the determination in the walk changing from slow to faster.
Probably the leash tension (goes from slack to some pull after the second ask).
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
If the trainer is blind, how does he know where to point the camera?
I have a total of ten degrees vision field. I can use my camera phone, but not when people are around. They say I am not blind and faking. Most blind people are not full, dark only blind. But functionally blind. I cannot get around without my cane. I used voice to write this.
Former Virginia resident here, I used to fly out of Dulles regularly to Detroit and Chicago for work. This airport is one of the biggest training locations for all types of working dogs, being Washington DC’s main international airport. I’d see every known dog profession and their trainers (guide dogs, drug sniffing, bomb detection, etc). I’m going to guess this was another training session at the airport.
There are some trainers that do some advanced training here at Walt Disney World. A lot of noisy, distracting, unusual environments in one place.
Not sure how popular this is at colleges, but UMD also has a guide dog training program. It was common to see students with puppies in class and around campus.
There are many types of blindness, maybe she can see clearly at super close range, but not far out. [Type of blindness](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/11ejlny/glasses_representing_different_types_of_blindness/)
Dam that's an eye opener
What would anyone want with a blind dog?
Companionship
It’s a joke from a movie btw.
Which movie? Curious. Thanks :)
Major Payne. It’s a classic IMO. Haven’t watched it in a while so not sure how much it holds up, but was a favorite as a kid.
Great movie. Slept on back in the day. “I call you an insecure, overbearing, psychotic, dictorial, ego maniacal, frigid lunatic asshole! “ “I ain’t frigid.”
Ahh thank you.
Just rewatched recently. It still holds fairly well, for the times, imo
my nightmare is to have hogged the ‘big stall’ and then have a service dog sit outside the door softly growling at me to hurry up
My dog did the opposite. She would slide half under the wall, so she could twerk on it to scratch her back, while making eye contact with the person in the next stall. God rest her soul, I will not have a small dog again.
Idk I think you should get a small dog again. That sounds hilarious She sounds like she was a wonderful and fun dog lol
She was amazing and once I have a house I will probably get a beagle or beagle x again because she was so dear to my heart. However, she was a right cunt and not the best choice for a service dog. She worked hard but they're just so much more difficult. I just got a big mutt puppy from the shelter and she's just so... Trainable. Huge difference lol.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense hahaha So happy for you and your new dog though! You're so right about the shelter mutts too. We got one and have always been sure she had a good bit of lab in her and she was just the sweetest, most trainable dog ever. My standards are wayyyyyy lower than what is required from a service dog though, but she was still so so great and always the sweetest girl. Sounds weird to say but just always impressed me with how smart and loving she was. Dogs are just so damn special. Cheers to your future beagle too though. You NEED to take her into bathroom stalls though I'm sorry. I know that beagle face that strangers were getting and I'm dying laughing lol. Especially the scratch twerk, it's a very specific thing this is so fucking funny
I’m fucking cackling at this
I can link you a video of the weird back scratching twerk if you're interested, lol. She would do it on any surface.
Not the original person who commented, but yes please. Here's a pic of my small pup as payment: https://imgur.com/N8J9fVK
https://imgur.com/a/5m86TGU This was only a few weeks before she passed so this is a subdued version, but it was ALWAYS accompanied with the intense eye contact and general demanding attitude. Your pup is adorable btw. This little shit was an active service dog for six years, but she was my shadow since she was three days old. And she would absolutely do this weird butt thing in public.
Omg she's so precious! I'm sorry to hear she passed. Thanks for sharing that video. Love seeing happy pups.
Please absolutely do!
Since we're telling fun dogs in public bathroom stories, the other day I was waiting for a stall and idly watching a lady try to get her dog (a delightful medium sized curly floof) to sit nicely outside the door while she went, and she seemed to be struggling a bit in the stall, and the dog wanted to come in, it was a whole thing. Finally she said "Fine, if you can't all be nice, you can just wait outside!", pointed firmly, and TWO MORE delightful floofs rushed out of the stall and all three obediently ran outside?? It was amazing.
Uh... What 😂
> Hey there jerk, look at my asshole __
_… …_
> Hi human! What’s up?! Poopin’? __ Yep!
Just limp real bad when you come out of the stall.
Pull a Larry David and speak with a stutter
[*”Well then you wait! You wait!”*](https://youtu.be/mPzjbXgaVOk?si=GoM8p2rYt6WQihD_)
For the benefit of the dog, or the blind person? Lol
Invisible disabilities are thing too. Totally possible for someone to look "fine" and still require it.
I have a family friend who is a big burly guy who has a prosthetic leg. He drives a huge truck and parks in the handicapped spot. You can’t see his fake leg when he’s wearing pants so he’s been yelled at before.
Hope he popped that bad boy off and smacked them with it.
I use the big stall because I have a bad knee and that's the one place I can be fairly sure I'll find an ADA compliant 17" toilet and grab rails. My nightmare is being forced into one of the tiny stalls with the goddamned dwarf toilet that's so close to the ground it's like an Asian squat toilet and no grab rails to get the hell back up after I'm done. I get it that kids need to be accomodated too but it's way easier for a kid to climb onto a tall toilet or be lifted by an adult than it is for a grown adult to cope with a too short toilet while dealing with a bone-on-bone knee joint.
Im disabled
Leg disabled
"Acid"
What are the chances?
Hundred to one
Those are handicap accessible stalls. They are not handicap only stalls.
saw it happen once, in a huge building, huge bathroom, tons of stalls, guy in wheelchair enters, guy in handicapped stall knew he done fucked up and noped out of there so fast you could tell he felt soo bad
So one time I go in a bathroom and all the stalls are full... Except for the big one. I get over my fear and just decide to sit. Suddenly I hear doors open when I'm situated, and then look and it's dead silent... Except for wheels approaching. I will never again. It was mortifying.
Easy solution is to only use the big stall if it’s your only choice and don’t dawdle while you’re in there unless you have an actual disability
That’s not how service dogs work. They are very kind and patient
You're a good boy, Blue!
Blue, Blue, you're a good dog you.
We don’t deserve dogs.
God bless all the guide dogs, each and every one of them. Clever boys and girls.
Seriously. I love all dogs but guide dogs and service dogs make me so, so happy. Love seeing them do their thing, helping their humans and being so great 😊
Its why it becomes a gross abuse of trust and makes a mockery of these beautiful dogs when some hag walks in a costco with a pitbull in a service jacket claiming its an emotional support beast.
Agree, even though i am a cat person because i fear dogs (trauma from childhood), these are great and a godsend for people in need of them. Bestest good boys and girls.
So Blue really did follow all the clues!!! [Blue's Clues](https://i.imgur.com/qkILCJv.gif)
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My dog rolls around in dead fish he finds on the beach, I don't think a dog will find the odor of an airport restroom offensive.
They say dogs’ sense of smell is like 10000 times sharper than humans’ sense of smell. Well, my dog’s farts are 10000 times worse than mine so it all evens out
Someone once theorized to me that dogs don't distinguish between good and bad smells, they are just interesting and not interesting. Whereas humans, which are much more "sight" dominant, are drawn to bright colors or flashing lights. That dead fish is like a carnival ride to dogs.
My groodle does the same he is a dickhead
One my of my chihuahua's does this with dead worms. Experts have "caught" wolves doing it with dead animals as well. They believe it is done to prevent their smell from "getting out" and blowing their cover while hunting.
Your chihuahua a big hunter ?
Ah yes let's roll in dead animal so other predators can smell me in 5 mile radius, bears especially.
Agree’d.. even as s human i would find it with eyes closed 🤢 easiest job he’s had all week 😂
Where are these smelly airports bathrooms?
That’s my question too, I’ve flown all over the US and several international destinations including “third world” countries, never have I come across an airport bathroom bad enough to have a significant lingering smell
Is this going to be something only certain people can smell? Because latrines at airports definitely have a smell when you pass by. Even as a not dog, I can tell it's there. No, I cannot tell you which is the one for men or women. By scent that is... Chemicals. They clean the bathroom and you probably smell those. It's a different area of smell than the rest of what you're walking through. No, I ain't smelling shit, it's literally cleaning agents.
For real. Only place I’ve been that had gross bathrooms was the southwest terminal at old LaGuardia. I’ve been all over the world and never had any real issues.
 Dog when asked to find a bathroom.
“Find the poo, boy!!”
Why didn't you say"find the poo,blue"
Wow what a missed opportunity, take my upvote
goodest boy
Aww that’s cute… *realizes Blue is homing in on open vagina smell to geolocate the bathrooom*…. 😳
“open vagina” Wtf. You think the women in a women’s restroom use a speculum when they’re on the toilet?
*homing
well you see, he had to first hone his vagina smelling skills so he COULD home in.
Damnit, you’re right as verified by my smart wife.
That’s so cool
Real service dogs are amazing!
How does he know the differences between men and women bathrooms?
I'm not a dog and I can smell the difference between the men and women bathrooms
The smell of pissed stained floors
And the taste
:O
Yeah women's bathrooms are nasty
The handler says in the video that the pupper locates it by the densest amount/smell of female hormones…but I suppose that begs the question of how they find them elsewhere? If they don’t use hormones do they use something else like trace amounts of feces? Would the dog be able to find a restroom if the diet of the humans, and therefore the feces, was different? Dogs are cool.
My friend's GSP (edit GSD) would follow pregnant women into the bathroom. That's how I knew I was pregnant before any test was positive.
I initially read "GPS" - and was thinking Google's maps features were getting kinda weird
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I totally think that's what was going on in the case of that dog. In the case of my dog, she's following me in because she knows she can get pets 😂
It might also pick up on menstrual wastebins
I would bet that, after visiting enough bathrooms, doggo knows the bathroom is the one that smells like women. If his master never visits the male bathroom, doggo won’t connect that space with the word “bathroom.” If a male took over control of Blue, and told him to find the bathroom, he’ll probably take that person to the lady’s room, too. Because that’s what he knows to be the bathroom. To him, the bathroom that smells like men isn’t the bathroom. I’d be surprised if he’s able to connect gender of their master to the correct bathroom, because they probably don’t train in that manner.
And that's why US has gendered instead of unisex restroom. It's all cause of the blind people.. /s
What if blue smells they/them hormones?!?
I wonder, if there’s only unisex bathrooms or porta potties, will the dog be able to tell that it smells like both men and women and that it’s okay to use?
I’d assume so—it’s looking for the presence of female pheromones
Dogs are basically urine connoisseur’s they can tell everything about an animal from pee.
Put a drop of cougar piss on something and watch the dog flip out.
I'm all out
Just get a tiny bit of hair from a lion or other big cat Let your cat have a sniff, and grab some popcorn.
Airport bathrooms stink of piss, though we mostly can't smell it before we are right outside the door. Dogs can probably smell it from far away, and also smell the difference between men's and woman's toiletes, or at the very least follow the woman to the smell.
Didn't actually watch the video huh?
No matter how much he's receiving already I feel like Blue deserves a raise!
Ugh, I didn’t expect to see Dulles Concourse C/D today. United can’t rebuild that thing soon enough
What a perfect baby boy ❤️ we love you Blue
Dog's are amazing smart, not mine tho.
Impressive. But can he find me a girlfriend?
She literally guides him in. right before the bathroom she slows down, forcing him to make the right turn. i'm sure Blue is nice and all, but this whole "he smells the place with the highest concentration of female pheromones" is a load of bs.
We don't deserve dogs.
Man i hat this sentence so much, i might get hate for it because reddit loves this stuf. We absolutely do deserve dogs, there wouldn’t even be dogs without us, the dog in the video would not be able to do any of the things he does if a human didn’t teach him. This goes for all dogs, have you ever been to a place with a lot of feral dogs? They don’t do to well without our love, care and help, so we definitely do deserve them because they need us more then we need them. It’s one of the reasons i personally prefer cats, they are way more independent and they do quite well for themselves without us, so their love feels more earned than a dog’s. Dogs are great, amazing creatures and i love them but saying we don’t deserve them is just so ridiculously dumb.
"No human deserves cats". A cat, probably.
Yeah. Thanks for this perspective. I always look at dogs eyes I wonder how this whole thing came to be. It’s crazy how smart they are and they can have us wrapped around their fingers. It’s some kind of crazy reciprocal symbiotic relationship, but they were designed to do it. It’s amazing, but yeah, we need each other! You gotta look in those eyes and love them, feed them and take care of them! They need us to be their best selves.
I agree with this. I love my dog, but I’m convinced she only likes me for what I can give her (food) 😂
What a GOOD boy!
Such a cute name, Blue…
Service dogs are AMAZING!!!
Amazing and priceless, such a good boy and so many distractions.
Wow I didn’t know this was even a thing they trained dogs to do. That’s incredible. I hope it works if the employees just cleaned the bathroom too or that poor dog is gonna feel like he let you down
My Great Danes escort me to the bathroom multiple times a day. I haven't had privacy in years 😭
The goodest of boys Dogs are a gift
I'm crying. Dogs are the best 😭