A Guide Dog
A guide dog is a dog especially trained to guide a blind person. Dogs chosen for such training must show good disposition, intelligence, physical fitness and sense of responsibility.
At the age of fourteen months, a guide dog begins an intensive course that lasts three to five months. It becomes accustomed to the leather harness and stiff leather handle it will wear when guiding its blind owner. The dog learns to watch the traffic and to cross the street safely. It also learns to obey such commands as "forward", "left", "right" and "sit" and to disobey any command that might lead its owner into danger.
The most important part of the training course is a fourweek program in which the dog and its future owner learn to work together. However, many blind people are unsuited by personality to work with dogs. Only a tenth of the blind find a guide dog useful.