Best friends of the blind but guide dogs still suffer social misunderstanding
Liu Taomei with her guide dog Cha De in her Pudong neighborhood in Shanghai.
For a blind woman named Liu Taomei, her dog is more than just man’s best friend. He is the vital link in her ability to enjoy some semblance of a normal life.
This month, a short video clip about Liu, 50, shows her taking her guide dog Cha De out for a wee at a corner near her home in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area. She falls on the pavement and momentarily loses the dog leash. The dog realizes the problem and rushes to her side.
The clip has made the rounds of online platforms, touching many hearts and calling attention once more to the barriers facing the disabled.
Liu’s problem revolved around where her guide dog was allowed to urinate. Unlike ordinary household pets, guide dogs are trained to use designated spots. In the case of male dogs, that means nearby paved lanes or roadsides. (The dog poop problem is more easily resolved with plastic bags attached to the dogs’ tails.)
Liu has some trouble coping with passing cycle and car traffic when her dog is urinating, so she has fallen several times. She has been forced to a street-side spot because some of her neighbors in Lancheng Community in Pudong complained about the smell from a urinal spot in a lane in the compound.
A site for a “toilet” for Cha De has been confirmed.
Now, however, there is some good news for Liu.
A site for a “toilet” for Cha De has been confirmed and residents will be raising funds for the construction. The property management company said it will send sanitation workers to wash the area regularly. Liu said she would try to be more amiable to neighbors, and the guide-dog school that trained Cha De apologized to residents who were harassed after Liu’s story online went viral.
Liu used to work as a masseuse at district hospitals in Baoshan and Pudong until disease robbed her of her eyesight. She was afraid to go out on her own. In 2019, she applied for a dog from the Shanghai branch of Yunnan Erxing Dog Guides Training School in Pudong.
At that time, there were only 43 guide dogs at the center. Liu considered herself lucky to get Cha De, an 18-month-old black Labrador retriever.
“Cha De comes to me, guides me on my way, helps me avert danger and brings light and joy to my life,” said Liu.
The center’s dog trainer initially helped Liu choose a urination spot in a lane between buildings in her residential community. Two months later, when Liu walked Cha De to the designated area, a neighbor complained about the odor. Another neighbor joined in the criticism, telling Liu to find another place for her dog to urinate.
Cha De, an 18-month-old black Labrador retriever, is more than a best friend.
To avoid conflict, the trainer helped Liu find a more distant spot, but after only two days, neighborhood fuss-budgets began complaining about that site, too. So the dog trainers chose another spot near a water pump, but then neighbors complained that the urine might contaminate the water supply.
When her neighborhood committee found yet a new spot just outside the compound walls, residents complained that the urination might stain their cars.
Some residents asked why Cha De couldn’t just jump over bushes and urinate in the community greenbelt, like other dogs do. For guide dogs, bushes are seen as barriers, and they are strictly trained never to lead their owners to such an area.
“If you ask them to jump over it, then they may do it again when they encounter barriers on streets,” said Zhu Jun, who trained Cha De at guide dog school. “That can risk the safety of the visually impaired.”
The views of community residents were divided into two clear camps. The sympathetic said residents should have a heart and give some leeway to guide dogs. They noted that no one seemed to complain about ordinary household pets pooping and urinating here and there in the community, and said criticism of Cha De’s designated spots were unkind and intolerant.
It seems that he can feel that people don’t like him. He started to refuse to eat or drink water. When I tried to make him eat something, he vomited.
Liu Taomei/Owner of Cha De
The opposing side said pet dogs usually urinate in the greenbelt or under a tree and not on pavement. A guide dog using the same paved spot day after day makes it a smelly toilet too close to where people live, they argued.
“Our community is crowded with people, and the dog’s pissing in one site three to four times a day affects us,” said a man living in the community.
All these objections finally forced Liu and Cha De go outside the community walls, to a corner area near a bus stop. That means going through two gates and dealing with vehicles or bicycles near the bus stop.
Liu said she thinks all the neighborhood criticism has affected Cha De’s normally upbeat nature.
“It seems that he can feel that people don’t like him,” Liu said. “He started to refuse to eat or drink water. When I tried to make him eat something, he vomited. My daughter later transported him to a veterinarian.”
Worrying about Cha De, Liu sought help from the guide dog school and from her neighborhood committee.
Upon learning her plight online, netizens also chimed in with their own advice. Some suggested that the community arrange for sanitation workers to wash down the urination spot regularly. The school offered a plan to have Cha De urinate on a piece of lawn, where plants and soil would soak up the odor.
According to Yi Xiaoting, assistant dean of the Shanghai Open University’s School of Public Administration, more work needs to be done to promote the acceptance of guide dogs in local communities.
“I think it might be better for professional institutions or community workers who serve the disabled to get involved,” she said.
Chen Xin takes the Shanghai Metro with the help of her guide dog. Regulations allowing guide dogs to enter public places and be on public transport took effect in the city on April 1, 2014.
Perhaps community hostility springs, in part, from the fact that guide dogs are not particularly common in China. Most people are acquainted with them at all through the Japanese movie “Quill,” which tells the story of a yellow Labrador guide dog named Quill.
Shanghai now has about 90,000 visually impaired people. But there are only approximately 40 guide dogs in service in the city and there are dogs retiring every year.
As the number of guide dogs increases, so, too, misunderstanding about them arises.
In early March, a visually impaired man name Wang was stopped by Metro workers when he tried to take his guide dog on a train in the city of Wuhan. He was told all dogs, including guide dogs, need to be muzzled to enter the station.
Last year, when a blind woman attempted to get on a bus with her guide dog in the Shanxi Province city of Taiyuan, the bus driver barred her, saying the dog might “hurt people.”
Similarly, in 2019, the owner of a female guide dog was rejected by a taxi driver in the northeastern city of Dalian.
During the recent sessions of the nation’s top legislature and top political advisory bodies, delegate Tai Lihua, head of the China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe, proposed legislation creating a more barrier-free society for China’s more than 85 million disabled people.
A trainer coaches a guide dog how to help a blind man cross a street in Dalian, Liaoning Province.
The ABCs of the school that trains companions for the sight-impaired
Every guide dog begins training as a puppy, and those who don’t pass with flying colors are expelled from school.
Shanghai Daily talked with Chan Shu, who works at Shanghai Erxing Dog Guides School, to discuss the rigorous training.
Q: Tell us a bit about your school.
A: The Shanghai Erxing Dog Guides School, established in 2018, is committed to providing the most advanced training and excellent guide dogs for the visually impaired. The school became a member of the International Guide Dog Federation last year. So far, we have provided 21 guide dogs to owners in Shanghai.
Q: What breeds of dogs are appropriate for guide dogs?
A: Generally, there are four breeds of dogs that can be used as guide dogs — German Shepherds, poodles, Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers. We use Labrador Retrievers most often.
German Shepherds, which are commonly used in military and police roles, look a bit fierce but are very loyal. That means it’s hard to shift a dog from one owner to a new one if that becomes necessary. Poodles can at times be a bit peevish. If they make a mistake and are not punished, they will repeat the mistake time and time again. Golden Retrievers are good, but their long hair makes it difficult for the visually impaired to keep them clean and groomed.
We check a dog’s family history a few generations back to ensure there is no record of “ancestors” hurting people.
Q: How long is the training period?
A: When the puppies are between 45 days and 2 months old, they are screened to determine character and willingness to learn. Only a small number of them pass that initial test. When the pups are 1 year old, they begin training in more than 70 areas. That lasts six months to a year.
If they fail any test along the way, they are weeded out. Outstanding dogs can be trained to help special groups of people, like diabetics, autistic children and those suffering depression.
Zhang Wenbo (right) gives Ta Zhang, a retired guide dog, some water after adoption at the Shanghai Erxing Dog Guides School in August.
Q: What are the qualifications to get a guide dog?
A: We usually give priority to those with a strong need to get out and about, like people who have jobs. Household family members must be amenable to dogs and not be allergic to dog hair.
An applicant needs to be capable of caring for a dog and be willing for spot visits by us. They have to feed the dogs standard food and not junk food.
And finally, the characters of a prospective owner and a dog need to be compatible.
Q: How long does it take for a dog and owner to be paired?
A: For those with urgent needs who make application to our school, the screening and pairing process usually takes three weeks to one month. If the person and the dog get along very well from the start, it can be only two weeks.
Q: What happens to the dogs when their guide days are over?
A: The service period for a dog is eight years. After a guide dog is retired from active duty, the owner may apply for family members to assume care of the dog, or, alternatively, the school can look for family to adopt it. If all else fails, the dog can live at the school for the remainder of its life.
Q: Who pays for all this?
A: The guide dog school doesn’t make a profit from the dogs, but there are charity groups who contribute to the cost of the program. We have a “Cloud Dog-Keeping” program on our WeChat account, where people can pay 10 yuan (US$1.54) a month to “adopt” a guide dog at our school online.
We inform the “adoptive parents” of the conditions of their dogs regularly, with pictures, texts and videos.
