Guide Horses Views
There are several perceived advantages to using a horse rather than a dog. Miniature horses, with an average lifespan of thirty years, live much longer than dogs, and for those allergic to or frightened of dogs, a horse could make a good alternative. However, while a dog can adapt to many different home situations, a horse must live outdoors, requiring a shelter and room to move about when not on duty. Also, though they can be trained to relieve themselves on command, the period of time a horse can actually wait is significantly shorter than a dog's.[citation needed] Guide horse users may also find difficulty in transporting a miniature horse on limited-spaced public transportation, such as on buses or taxis. Some individuals also are concerned that a horse's powerful fight-or-flight instinct may lead it to have less predictable behavior than that of a dog.
From the Editor: If you read newspapers, watch television, or use email, you have probably heard something recently about the Guide Horse Foundation and its plans to train miniature horses as guides for blind people. I frankly laughed the first time I read one of these articles. Then I read another piece describing a blind man in Maine who preferred to make a spectacle of himself bumping into things and people rather than admit that he was blind. He expects all this to change as soon as he is given a guide horse. He believes that he will no longer mind going places once he has his trusty little horse to show him the way.
Within the past year I have become aware of an organization called the Guide Horse Foundation, located in Kitrell, North Carolina. It is the brainchild of Don and Janet Burleson. Mr. and Mrs. Burleson propose to train miniature horses to serve as guides for the blind. Indeed the organization has already advertised that it plans to serve two students, Cheryl King of Washington state and Dan Shaw of Elsworth, Maine. Mrs. Burleson is a retired horse trainer, and Mr. Burleson designs Web sites.
As far as I have been able to determine from my reading of several news stories about them, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Burleson has any knowledge of blind people and our needs. Furthermore Mrs. Burleson knows nothing about training guide animals for the blind. Suzanne Whalen, the president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU), discovered this in an extensive telephone interview with Mrs. Burleson. This interview demonstrated that the Burlesons have made no real effort to learn proper training methods for guides as they have evolved during the past seventyU‑two years, first by The Seeing Eye and then by other guide dog schools. Also in her conversation Suzanne discovered many disadvantages of miniature horses as guides, disadvantages which my reading on the subject has corroborated.
Guide Horses Images
