Seeing The Guiding Dog The Science Of Puppy Picking Benefits The Blind

September 27, 1988|by ROSA SALTER, The Morning Call

There are six of them, all squirms and wiggles, cute as only 8-week-old, identical purebred yellow labs can be, and they don't know it, but this is a test.

Jane Russenberger has just unrolled a 5-foot-long, 3-foot-high fence made of chicken wire, and now she is urging the pups to follow her. They tangle and pounce and gallop and trot - and run up against the wire fence as if it's a brick wall.

"Come on, puppies. Here, puppies. Here, pup, pup, pup. Goo-o-d puppy," Russenberger coos from the other side of the wire barrier.

These puppy brains are really whirring now. The brood hops - hmmm, too high to get over. They burrow - nope, that doesn't work either. They futilely push their puppy paws through the fence holes.

Finally, one pup realizes that this fence ends just a few feet in front of his nose, and he can just go around it.

Happily, he pads off towards Russenberger, soon to be followed, one at a time, by his siblings in a kind of puppy parade.

Well, almost all the puppies follow. One, named Sprinkle, hasn't quite caught on yet.

Her front paws pushed against the fence, still trapped, Sprinkle sits on her haunches and lets out a pitiful, high-pitched whine.

Poor puppy.

(DUMB puppy.)

Eight weeks old and already a failure.

"This is one anxious puppy," says Russenberger on retrieving the retriever from behind the barrier.

Actually, Russenberger later explains, Sprinkle isn't a total flop. She's really very good at being a puppy, and she's so attached to people she'll probably make someone a fine pet someday.

But guide dog material she's not.

Think about it: What if you were blind, and your guide dog, on whom you depended to get around, came across a simple obstacle and suddenly sat down and whimpered, suffering from an anxiety attack?

No, guide dogs need a special personality, and that's what Russenberger's recent afternoon of tests at ALPO Petfoods Inc.'s Pet Center was all about.

Off and on for several years, the South Whitehall Township company has been providing dogs for guide dog training programs sponsored by Guiding Eyes for the Blind, Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

The nonprofit organization, in turn, supplies companions to the visually handicapped.

Guiding Eyes has been at the job for more than 30 years, and in that time, Russenberger says, the agency has gotten the process down to a science.

Russenberger, an animal behaviorist who oversees the breeding and raising of more than 250 puppies each year at the organization's farm in upstate New York, can pick out a likely guide dog in less than an hour - even if it's barely out of babyhood.

Based on a keen eye and a series of puppy personality tests, she can tell if a puppy is too aggressive, too shy, or too intractable to take well to a lifetime of labor.

And the puppies think they're playing the whole time.

Russenberger's relatively simple tests are designed to measure the puppies' skills in four areas: their ability to concentrate, level of energy or "drive," their confidence and manageability.

Take the fence test.

The barrier not only tests the puppies' ability to concentrate on one activity long enough to solve a problem, Russenberger said, but also shows how strong their attachment to people is - in other words, whether the animals generally like to be with people and are eager to please them.

The test, she added, also demonstrates a puppy's confidence level: does it cope well with a new situation, or does it cower and cry?

Anxious puppies, like Sprinkle, Russenberger said, may be very friendly and attached to their human friends. But they also are the ones who cry all night or chew up the furniture when their owners are away for too long.

"Not a good guide dog trait," she said.

What other kinds of tests does Russenberger do to determine whether a pup will be a good guide dog?

Well, there's the blanket test. That involves shaking a blanket at the puppy and seeing how it reacts. Some pups will playfully mouth the blanket and explore it - good guide dog traits, Russenberger said, for they show confidence, concentration ability and energy.

Other pups will grab onto the blanket with their teeth and really dig in for a round of tug of war - displaying excitability and combativeness not so good in a guide dog.

Then there's the umbrella test and the spoon test. In these tests, Russenberger quickly snaps open an umbrella or suddenly beats on a metal pot with a spoon.

Puppies typically will either cower at the strange actions and noises - or not be bothered at all, although they initially may seem startled.

Imperturbable dogs - as long as they show a reasonably high energy level in other tests - are the ones that make better guiders, Russenberger said.

That's because guide dogs often have to face new situations without being flustered. And the animals may have to spend long periods patiently waiting for their companions: say, by their desk at work or in a crowded restaurant.

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