The twenty-fourth of April is World Guide Dog Day. Unlike ordinary pets, these animals, for their special role in helping blind people, have a special status in society. Today, in our city there are 14 four-legged animals who are guides for blind Kurdish residents. How such “man’s best friends” are prepared in the next story.
Guide dogs, or, as people with visual impairments themselves call them, guide dogs, are not just pets. Animals are treated as technical assistive devices. We agree that it sounds somewhat “peculiar,” but there are legal and medical justifications for this.
Zoya Polyakova, head of the Kursk regional association of guide dog owners “True Friend”
“Actually, the fact that a dog is a technical device helps a lot. Because there are places where dogs are prohibited. And since a dog is a technical device, this law does not work.
For example, such a dog must be allowed into hospitals, shops and other public areas. Unfortunately, there are no specialized training centers for guide dogs in Kursk. But, if there are indications for the blind to use a dog as an assistant, then the four-legged friend will be picked up and taken to the nightingale’s land. Taking into account many nuances: allergies, character compatibility, experience, and so on. The dog’s task is very important. The animal helps to overcome obstacles, holes, find stairs, entrances, stops, and even remember the most common path of a blind person. Such dogs are not susceptible to the appearance of street cats or other representatives of their family, and do not react to the loudest, sharp sounds.
Zoya Polyakova, head of the Kursk regional association of guide dog owners “True Friend”
Currently in Russia there are three schools for training guide dogs. The oldest one belongs to the Vos Vos RF and is located in the village of Kupavna, Moscow region. Training center for assistance dogs for disabled people in the city of Zheleznodorozhny, and a school has recently opened in St. Petersburg, where dogs of various categories are trained, including guides”
As part of World Guide Dog Day, our city hosts socially oriented events for adults and children, where they are introduced to the features of using such helpers for the blind.
Olga Samoilova, head of the Kursk Regional Special Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired. V. Alyokhina
“Our library has developed a biblio-log-shock project “I am a guide dog, I shake your paw!” As part of it, we introduce such dogs and their capabilities to the residents of the Kursk region. And everywhere our events with dogs are greeted with a “Hurrah!”
Guests of the event were told about the capabilities of a special dog and shown how and what special commands of a blind person it carries out. In particular, a Giant Schnauzer named Voice can recognize two languages in communication at once: Russian and German.
