The skilful Mind of the Guide Dog

For the dog to become a safe and fluent guide for a vision impaired person it will be necessary for it to employ the cognitive processes of selective attention, pattern recognition, categorisation, discrimination, prediction and the mental representation of knowledge and its translation into action. Above all the guide dog needs to be a confident decision maker and problem solver, capable of operating with purposeful intent within a set of rules.

If the dog is to guide its vision impaired owner safely in town or city, stopping at kerbs, avoiding pedestrians and street furniture, manoeuvring around ladders and helping its owner cross roads safely, it will need to be much more than a well conditioned and unthinking robot!