Assistance and guide dogs
Guide Dogs for the Blind Association provides assistance dogs for people with disability. Some dogs are trained specifically to help with certain tasks.
Dogs for blind or visually impaired people
Assistance dogs are not suitable for everyone. Whether an assistance dog would be suitable for you must be decided taking your individual circumstances into account.
Assistance dogs need to be looked after, groomed, fed, exercised and taken to the vet just like any other dog. For many people assistance dogs have brought a great deal of independence and confidence, as well as companionship into their lives.
The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association provides training and support for people with sight loss who would like to have a guide dog.
To become a guide dog owner, you must be 16 or over, resident in the UK and have a significant visual loss which may be combined with other disabilities.
You must also be able to use and care for the dog.
Dogs for deaf or hearing impaired people
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People train dogs to alert the deaf person to sounds they are unable to hear such as alarm clocks, babies crying, smoke alarms and many others sounds.
To become a hearing dog owner, you must be severely hard of hearing or profoundly deaf and be over 18 years old. You must also be able to care for the dog.
Other assistance dogs
Some charities train dogs to assist and support people with a particular disability. Disability assistance dogs can be trained to do many things. Examples include:
- fetching items
- operating control buttons
- switching lights on and off
- opening and closing doors
- loading and unloading the washing machine
- helping with shopping
- assisting with dressing and undressing
- summoning help if necessary
Dogs can also be trained in other ways, for example, to alert owners of an imminent epileptic seizure.
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