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Coronavirus: Tricks to train guide dogs during lockdown

By Rachel FlintBBC News

Navigating busy roads, public transport and trips to the shops are all in a day's work for a guide dog.

But with the training centre in Wales closed and roads quiet, there are concerns visually impaired people may have to wait longer to get a dog.

Volunteers, known as boarders, are instead using video lessons to keep training going around the house and garden during the coronavirus lockdown.

Guide dog instructor Amy John said they were going "above and beyond".

From when they start their training at about 12 months old, guide dogs live with their boarder and are taken every day to the Guide Dogs Cymru training centre to learn essential skills.

But when social distancing measures came in, the training centre had to close, leaving it up to the volunteers to try to train the 15 dogs from their living rooms and gardens.

"They can still go out for their daily walks, or for a free run, and that's been invaluable for the moment," said Amy.

But with cafes and restaurants closed and less traffic on the roads, Amy said the puppies were not able to get used to many of the daily challenges guide dogs have to face.

"We take our dogs into shops and cafes, we use public transport regularly to get them used to being on buses, but at the moment all that is completely off," she said.

Amy and her dog Bryngwyn are making videos of exercises and then sending them to the boarders, who are practising them with the dogs and sending back footage for feedback.

They may look like games, but the tricks teach essential skills, such as hand touching and putting their heads on seats, which are important to keep their owner safe and provide reassurance.

"They're so used to going out and about while they are with us, so it's important that we keep up this up, to keep their little minds going," Amy said.

Near the end of their training, which normally takes 16 weeks, the dogs are "matched" with a visually impaired or blind owner, with factors like the dog's speed taken into account.

But this has been paused until the lockdown ends.

"It was a real shame, we did have some dogs that were nearly at the end of their training and were ready to be matched," Amy said.

Currently there are 59 visually impaired people on the waiting list for a guide dog in Wales.

But even with the volunteers' efforts, with dogs unable to practice essential skills like guiding across busy roads and on to trains and buses, owners may have to wait a little longer.

"It will be challenging for the dogs, it will mean that when they do come back into training with us, and we are able to start training them again, it might just take that little bit longer," Amy said.

"We will have to work quite hard on to make sure that the dogs are really confident before they are matched with a client."

It is not just the guide dogs in the making being kept busy during lockdown - some old dogs are being taught new tricks by their owners.

Heather Worofka from Wrexham is using her time during the lockdown to teach her two-year-old guide dog Victor more skills.

Heather, 25, who is blind, has made a game using a cardboard box and a carrot, which she is using to try to teach the labradoodle, along with her retired guide dog Una, who she now keeps as a pet.

"Victor was a bit afraid of the cardboard and Una kept trying to climb into the box," she said.

"We've also been testing Victor's concentration and obedience in the garden, with my mother holding a squeaky toy and food, but fair play to Victor, he's not distracted."

Andrea Gordon of Guide Dogs Cymru said while visually impaired people may have to wait longer for their dogs, the efforts of the boarders were making a difference.

"A significant number of people with sight loss live alone, and the current restrictions can leave them feeling cut off from their usual support networks of friends and family," she said.

"Many are not online, so Guide Dogs staff are making regular phone calls to check on the well-being of every single service user, helping them to access the practical support they need.

"We've explained that face-to-face training cannot take place at the moment as we are following government advice on social distancing.

"As an organisation, we are currently planning for such time as services can safely resume, and our plans are reviewed daily, based on the latest advice from the government."

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Tom Smith

Of all the people associated with Seabiscuit, one of the most mysterious was Tom Smith, Seabiscuit’s trainer, a man who spoke little about his life past or present. He “loitered around the edges of my dreams, in his gray suit and gray felt fedora, watching me, saying nothing,” explained author Laura Hillenbrand. “At times I was frustrated by his reticence. But soon I came to feel that by remaining silent about himself, he was telling me what was important. What mattered about Tom was not what he said, but what he did, and all he did — almost literally — was nurture horses.”

Quiet HorsemanIn his early years on the frontier, the Native Americans Smith dealt with called him “Lone Plainsman” and white settlers called him “Silent Tom.” Those who bumped up against the man’s persistent silence while he was working with Seabiscuit made up what they couldn’t find out, writing that he had been a bank robber, or a rodeo star, or even a hero in the 19th-century Indian wars. The truth was probably less dramatic.

Horse ExperienceAs a boy, he took part in the last great western cattle drives. By the age of 13, he was an experienced horse breaker. Later, he hunted deer and mountain lions. For a time, he was the foreman of a sheep ranch. In the prairies, he tamed countless mustangs for the British cavalry’s use in their Boer War campaign. Later, the still-young man took a job as foreman at Colorado’s Unaweep Cattle Range and stayed for 20 years. There he tamed horses, treated their injuries or illnesses, and took care of their daily needs.

Horse TalkWhen Unaweep was sold in 1921, Smith found work training horses to race. Again and again he took ordinary horses and made them winners. In his soul, he was as much a horse healer as a horse trainer. “Learn your horse,” he said. “Each one is an individual, and once you penetrate his mind and heart, you can often work wonders with an otherwise intractable beast.” Another time he said, “It’s easy to talk to a horse if you understand his language. Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die… They are only changed by the way people treat them.”

Fortunate MeetingIn 1934, Smith found himself living out of a horse stall at Agua Caliente Race Track in northern Mexico, racing a horse named Oriley, who was providing him a meager income in the depths of the Depression. But Smith’s luck was about to turn. He was sharing his horse stall with a man named Noble Threewit, who was training horses for George Giannini, a good friend of Charles Howard, the California auto magnate turned horse owner. Giannini, visiting his horses, saw how Oriley thrived under Smith’s care and introduced the trainer to Charles Howard, who, acting on instinct, hired him.

“Get Me That Horse”In 1936, Howard sent Smith east to look for a horse that could make him a player, and in Massachusetts, Smith first set eyes on Seabiscuit. Two months later, the Howards saw Seabiscuit win a race. When they sent Smith to look over the horse, he gave what was, for the tight-lipped trainer, a virtual soliloquy. “Get me that horse,” he told his boss. “He has real stuff in him. I can improve him. I’m positive.” Smith healed the mental wounds caused by too much neglect and too many races. He had a large stall built to accommodate all of Seabiscuit’s companions: a dog, a horse, and a monkey. He let the Thoroughbred, who was practically narcoleptic by horse standards, sleep as late as he wanted.

A Cult FigureAfter Smith’s success with Seabiscuit, he became a cult figure among horsemen. They wanted to know all his training tricks, including how he mixed liniments or shoed horses. He told his peers that success did not lie in magic potions or secret techniques. “We have a great horse,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. And we tried to use common sense in training him and in racing him.” Smith rarely revealed that much to reporters. He regarded them as intrusive and treated them with disdain. When asked by a reporter to describe Seabiscuit, Smith retorted, “He’s a horse.” Reporters were not so fond of Smith either. After one of Smith’s uncommunicative spells, reporter Jolly Roger sniped, “Some suspect that Tom may have removed his tongue.”

Continued SuccessSmith saw Seabiscuit through his best racing days and into retirement. He continued to work with Howard until the spring of 1943, when he had back surgery that required a long convalescence. Howard had to replace his talented trainer and the two parted on friendly terms. After his recovery, Smith went to the east Coast to work with Elizabeth Arden Graham, the cosmetics magnate and horse lover. She grew fond of her new trainer. “There’s something about Tom Smith that gives you confidence,” she said.

A Black MarkIn 1945, at the age of 70, Smith received the only black mark on his career when one of his stable hands was caught spraying a decongestant into the nose of one of the stable’s second-tier horses. New York racing laws forbade giving racehorses medications. Although the decision to use the spray was never tied to Smith, and the dose of the decongestant was deemed insignificant, he was banned from racing for a year, a controversial decision. After the ban was lifted, Graham rehired Smith and he repaid her loyalty by guiding her horse Jet Pilot to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

An End Without HorsesSmith worked with horses until a stroke debilitated him at age 78, and he was sent to live in a sanatorium. It was the first time in his life that he was separated from his beloved horses. When Tom Smith was buried on a cold day in 1957, few people turned out to honor the talented and quiet horseman.