When you are the handler of a guide dog, or any other service animal for that matter, there is always a fear of getting attacked by another dog on the loose.
This happened to one of my friends. She is blind and uses a Guide Dog to travel and get around. This has always been a great method of travel for a lot of blind people.
My friend was sitting as a bus stop in Los Angeles. I think it was at the Good Sameriton Hospital but I am not exactly certain. She had her guide dog at the bus stop with her and I’m sure the guide dog was doing what it was supposed to. It was probably lying at her feet or sitting calmly beside her.
Then, a Pit Bull comes out of nowhere, with no owner and no leash. The Pit Bull attacked my friends guide dog. She has a little baby about the same age as Isaiah. She was unsure what to do.
She did the only thing she could at the time. She let go of her dogs leash and let her try to defend herself. Meanwhile she stayed close to the stroller with the baby in it so that the dogs would not hurt the baby. She was screaming for help and several people got out of their cars on a pretty busy street.
This had to be so frightening. I would not knkow what to do in this situation. What can you do? A person should never get in the middle of a dog fight because even your own dog will just fight anything that comes near it.
Finally a person kicked the Pit Bull so hard that it lost it’s breath for a little bit. That gave the guide dog a chance to get away.
At that moment the bus pulled up and the dog jumped on and so did my friend. She felt terrible because she had the stroller and her dog was all bloody and it was a crowded bus. But luckily someone on the bus knew of a vet on the route and helped my friend get her dog there safely.
Here is my friend, in a place that is unfamiliar to her, with her guide dog out of commision, and no cane to travel with. This would be such a scary situation for me. Seriously to not be able to know where you are going or travel with the mobility aids that you have come to depend on?
She did get home only because she called her husband and he came and got her and the baby. There is no way to know if her dog will ever work again. This may ruin her as a guide dog because of a fear of being attacked again. If the dog did decide that it doesn’t want to work anymore, who could blame it?
There is no excuse for this kind of thing happening. People need to be informed of the law. A loose dog bothering a service animal would be like someone grabbing the steering wheel of a sighted driver. You just can’t do that, or shouldn’t anyway.
The owner of any dog that attacks a service animal can be fined. But i this situation, there was no help from the police or animal control. This couple just wanted that Pit Bull to be found and off the streets.
My friend is pretty tramatised by the whole thing, and I can see why. She’s probably going to hear the sound those dogs made while fighting in her head for a long time. I just hope and pray that both the handler and the dog can recover from this mentally and the dog recovers physically as well.
The public needs to be aware of the laws protecting disabled people and their service animals. When other citizens don’t take the law seriously and follow the “leash law” this type of disaster happens. Having a guide dog is great. The freedom is fantastic, but there is also always a fear that we’ll get attacked.
by Yvonne Foong, on 05.20.09 @ 11:35 pm
Thanks for informing me of why it’s so important not to let dogs run loose. By the way, your writing is improving a lot lately?
by Carin, on 05.21.09 @ 11:58 am
I’m always so afraid that one day that’ll be me. I’m so happy people stopped to help. I hope handler and dog will be ok. That’ll leave scars we can’t see that take a long time to heal.
by hollyalonzo, on 05.24.09 @ 9:20 am
Yes Yvonne, more people need to be aware of this. It’s scary when you are the handler. And yes Karen, it’s always a fear. You can control your dog but you can’t control other people’s dogs.
Andre, Edward’s Seeing Eye dog, got attacked a couple of years ago by a pit bull. Andre was just minding his own business laying under the chair. Dog comes up out of no where and caught andre by surprise. Lckil it didn’t make him agressive or effect his work. But also it wasn’t a bad attack because so many people were around and we stopped it before too long. That dog was put down after that. Not only because it’s a seeing eye dog, but because Andre did nothing to encourage the attack. If a dog can come out of the blue and attack for no reason, then that could easily be a child instead of another dog.
I really fear dogs ever since that. Only because I know that most people can not control their dogs and don’t even have them on a leash. Whenever we walk down a residential street and all of the dogs start barking I get worried. Being blind we dont’ know if any of those dogs are lose. We just have to walk quickly and get past the danger.
Andre is a big dog and I think he could take care of himself, but as you know these dogs are trained not to be agressive. The fight is taken out of them basically and they are are very nice and friendly. I think after a while instinct would kick in since he is a German Shepard, but he’s not a fighter. He’s a sweetie instead. When I feel him frumbling at another dog for being stupid and getting on his nerve, I tell himthere is no point because he’s a teddy bear and wouldn’t hurt anything.
by Keisha Petrus, on 05.28.09 @ 6:14 am
hey holly
being an experienced dog handler, the best way to break off a fight is to throw cold water at the two dogs. These kind of situations are inevitable because people tend to be lax, so best prepare yourself by taking cold water with u.
by Lynne Swarbrick, on 08.09.09 @ 11:25 am
Hi Holly, I have Nf2 although my sight in unaffected I am profoundly deaf and own a hearing dog,a beautiful soft golden retriever who was once attacked by a Rottweiler dog.
It beats me why people continue to own theses type of dogs as status symbols.