A guide to leadership

Millie Marshall, a blind Oakhurst resident, goes for a walk accompanied by Nampa, her guide dog. Guide dogs go through about two years of training before being paired with their permanent owners.

Lacey Rees/Sierra Star Photos

Rona shows she knows how to act in class as trainer Hollie Shreve winds up her high school algebra period. It is Hollie’s responsibility to teach Rona how to function in as many situations as possible before returning her for formal guide-dog training in San Rafael.

Being a guide dog in training, Rona is allowed in grocery stores, medical offices, movie theaters, retail stores — most places where other dogs would not be allowed.

Yosemite High School junior, Hollie Shreve, buckles a guide-dog-puppy-in-training jacket on Rona, a dog she has been training for the past year. Rona’s blue “crate” or box is her home away from home. Rona will soon return to Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael for formal guide-dog training before being paired with a blind person.

Lacey Rees - lrees@sierrastar.com

YOSEMITE LAKES PARK— Hollie Shreve is about to lose her favorite dog — while it may be a sad parting, her loss will eventually be a passport to more independence for another.

Hollie, a junior at Yosemite High School, helps train guide dogs. She gets a dog when it’s about 2 months old, trains it for about a year and then returns it to Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc. in San Rafael. There the dog gets more formal training before being paired permanently with a blind or partially blind person.

Hollie’s charge is Rona, a yellow Labrador who’s been with her 24/7 for the past 13 months. She leaves the dog at home under the care of her parents, however, when she is at school, especially during its young puppy stage.

Outside of school, she and Rona are inseparable whether Hollie goes to a movie, the bank, the dentist, a restaurant or to church. She teaches Rona how to behave in all situations.

“When we first got her, she cried and whined in church,” says Hollie. Rona was taken out and walked up and down the stairs until she was tired out. “Since then she has slept in church.”

Mom’s stories

Hollie had always wanted to raise guide dogs after hearing her mother, who was in 4-H Club as a young girl, tell stories of raising the dogs.

“I always wanted to take my dogs to the restaurant, the store and wherever I went,” says Hollie. Raising a guide dog was the perfect solution.

The dogs come from the guide dog school in San Rafael. Rona is descended from a long line of canines bred to be guide dogs. Hollie and her family were screened much like foster families to see how the dog will live, whether it will be safe, and determine how much time the trainer can spend with the dog. Since Rona is Hollie’s second dog, the process was much faster the second time.

The 2-month-old puppy came with a portable crate, a leash, medication for flu and heart worms, two sizes of guide-dog-puppy-in-training jackets, food and a binder two inches thick filled with rules and suggestions for training.

She is only allowed to eat Science Diet brand dog food which is more expensive. “My parents pay for it,” she says, and since Rona is a 4-H animal, she gets a discount.

When Rona arrived, a sign on her cage read, “My name is Rona and I’m an overeater.” She was always acting like she was hungry. Hollie taught her not to cry for food and beg. She gets food at only certain times of the day.

She “potty trained” Rona and taught her to come to her name.

Hollie and Rona go to group meetings two times a month in Fresno where she learns how to handle her dog in different situations and how to handle certain reactions. For instance, she learns how to train the dog not to eat food unless it’s in her bowl and only her dog food.

In October the group will take their dogs on the train to Hanford for the Renaissance Faire. “Last year we went to dinner,” she says. “There were 20 guide dogs at a restaurant. It was one of my favorite trips.”

Last month, Hollie, a member of Future Farmers of America and 4-H who shows pigs, goats and ducks, took Rona to the Madera County Fair for a week. Rona learned how to sleep in a trailer and how to behave around crowds. It was Rona’s third fair.

Has she ever been invited to leave a business? Once, at an electronics store in Fresno, an employee asked her to leave for fear Rona would ruin the carpet. Hollie’s group leader called the manager, the manager talked to the employee and when Hollie went back a couple weeks later, the employee “looked at me funny” and walked away.

Rona has her own crate that she sleeps in, and it travels with her wherever she goes. “People think it is cruel when she has to sleep in her crate,” explains Hollie, “but when she is scared, she goes into her crate. That is her spot. She knows she is safe. When we go to a hotel, her crate is always with us.”

“It’s a 24-hour-a-day job,” she says. “They are like your child. When they get sick you have to take care of them. You get so you don’t want anyone else to handle them.”

But the day is coming quickly when Rona will go back to San Rafael for formal training. “People wonder how I can give her up, but for me it is like giving back to people. The blind person needs it more than I do. You love these animals so much, but [it’s worth it] if the dog makes it through graduation, and you see it going off with someone else.” Hollie will attend the graduation if Rona makes it.

Hollie will probably go through one more dog before she graduates from high school. She wants to study pre-med or work at a large-animal veterinary hospital. She thinks she might want to work with actual guide dogs during their formal training.

Formal training

When Rona leaves Hollie, she will begin her formal guide-dog training at San Rafael. The school’s Web site says about 20 to 30 dogs begin their four-to-five month formal training together.

After pre-training physical exams, the dogs socialize with others in the kennel’s dog run. They receive daily care, grooming and handling. Their first training starts with walks on leash and then are introduced to wearing the harness. On campus they are trained to respond to commands such as “Forward” or “Steady.” They also learn to navigate the campus obstacle course.

Then they train on quiet residential sidewalks, learn more command words, and learn to stop at curbs and overhead obstructions. They become familiar with shopping malls, and all kinds of curbs as they move on to heavier traffic conditions. They receive workouts while the trainer is blindfolded.

As they advance they learn to board and exit an escalator. They also learn “intelligent disobedience.” This mean if they are given a command by their owner but perceive it would be dangerous to obey, they will disobey.

They go to downtown city areas, city buses, residential streets without sidewalks and rural, country roads. They continue with obedience and advanced obstacle courses on the campus.

They move on to heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic, wide street crossings and subway platform edges and transit systems.

When a dog is “class ready” it can be paired with a person. They spend about a month training together at the school. They both work through the same training progression that the dog went through with its trainers.

The dogs’ puppy raisers attend the graduation to formally present the dog to its new owner.

A working dog

Millie Marshall, a Mountain Area resident who lost her eyesight in a motorcycle crash about 20 years ago, has owned guide dog, Nampa, for two years. Nampa is her second dog. Her first, Rhapsody, became too old to work and now lives as a pet in the Marshall household.

Ms. Marshall received Nampa from Guide Dogs for the Blind. After she was paired with her dog, she learned first to work with a stick with a harness on it, using the commands. Then the trainer held the harness, and finally the harness was put on the dog. The second time around for Ms. Marshall was a brief refresher course.

She began by walking through the streets of San Rafael to make sure she gave the commands correctly.

“You listen to the traffic and when you hear that the light is in your favor, and you know it is safe to cross, then you give the command, “Nampa, forward,” says Ms. Marshall. “All along when you give a command and the dog obeys correctly, you give praise — lots of praise. They love that praise; it cheers them up.”

She was taught to avoid being hit by a car, which the dog has already learned. “You know how to react when the dog starts acting a certain way. They actually have cars try to hit you,” she says.

The dog may jump back or run faster depending on the situation. She says that during training a car, not one staged by the school, came around the corner “and the dog ran across the street so I wouldn’t get hit.” She credits Nampa with saving her life.

“Every predicament you can think of, they take you into that environment,” she says, such as obstacle-strewn sidewalks, stores, overhangs, escalators, dirt roads. She was taken into San Francisco, to the wharf, Union Square and Market Street.

She was taught how to groom Nampa. The school works the pairs from breakfast until bedtime, six days a week for 28 days the first time.

“They put you through the obstacle course, and each day the obstacle course gets more adventurous,” she says.

“There is always food laying around to see if the dog leads you away to the food. They torment the dog and torment you, too,” she laughs. “By the time you leave there you are in good shape.”

Nampa helps Ms. Marshall navigate the unfriendly roads of Oakhurst as she walks from her home east of Highway 49 to work as a New Hope marriage and family counselor in town.

“This town is not pedestrian friendly,” she observes. If she wants to go to the post office or Old Mill Village, it is not safe to cross the road. She simply has to have someone with her or take her.

A person from the guide-dog school came out briefly to show her the safest way to cross streets and walk around Oakhurst. Later, a person from the state Department of Rehabilitation, who spent several sessions with her, said, “There is no place in this town for you to walk safely.” But knowing that Ms. Marshall would walk around town anyway, she was shown the best way.

Ms. Marshall grooms Nampa daily, even brushes her teeth. She also puts leather booties on Nampa’s paws when they go out to protect the paws from hot pavement and other injuries.

Ms. Marshall says that letting people pet her dog adversely affects how the dog works.

She has to keep up with the daily obedience training of Nampa even if she doesn’t go any place or the dog will not work well. “They need to remember you are in control, and when you give a command they have to follow it,” she says.

Hollie says that Guide Dogs for the Blind are always looking for people to train guide dogs from the puppy stage until they begin their formal training.

“We are always looking for puppy raisers,” says the training school’s public relations department. Anyone interested may call 800-295-4050 and ask for the Puppy-raising Department. Information is also available on the school’s Web site: www.guidedogs.com