Lloyd Janice, Budge Claire, La Grow Steve, Stafford Kevin
Discipline of Veterinary Sciences, James Cook University , Townsville, QLD , Australia.
College of Health, Massey University , Palmerston North , New Zealand.
Front Vet Sci. 2016 Dec 16;3:114. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2016.00114. eCollection 2016.
Matching a person who is blind or visually impaired with a guide dog is a process of finding the most suitable guide dog available for that individual. Not all guide dog partnerships are successful, and the consequences of an unsuccessful partnership may result in reduced mobility and quality of life for the handler (owner), and are costly in time and resources for guide dog training establishments. This study examined 50 peoples' partnerships with one or more dogs (118 pairings) to ascertain the outcome of the relationship. Forty-three of the 118 dogs were returned to the guide dog training establishment before reaching retirement age, with the majority ( = 40) being categorized as having dog-related issues. Most ( = 26) of these dogs' issues were classified as being behavioral in character, including work-related and non-work-related behavior, and 14 were due to physical causes (mainly poor health). Three dogs were returned due to matters relating to the handlers' behavior. More second dogs were returned than the handlers' first or third dogs, and dogs that had been previously used as a guide could be rematched successfully. Defining matching success is not clear-cut. Not all dogs that were returned were considered by their handlers to have been mismatched, and not all dogs retained until retirement were thought to have been good matches, suggesting that some handlers were retaining what they considered to be a poorly matched dog. Almost all the handlers who regarded a dog as being mismatched conceded that some aspects of the match were good. For example, a dog deemed mismatched for poor working behavior may have shown good home and/or other social behaviors. The same principle was true for successful matches, where few handlers claimed to have had a perfect dog. It is hoped that these results may help the guide dog industry identify important aspects of the matching process, and/or be used to identify areas where a matching problem exists.
为盲人或视力受损者匹配导盲犬是一个为其找到最合适导盲犬的过程。并非所有导盲犬伙伴关系都能成功，不成功的伙伴关系可能会导致主人（使用者）行动能力下降和生活质量降低，对导盲犬训练机构来说，在时间和资源方面成本也很高。本研究调查了50人与一只或多只狗的伙伴关系（共118组配对），以确定这种关系的结果。在118只狗中，有43只在达到退休年龄之前就被送回了导盲犬训练机构，其中大多数（40只）被归类为存在与狗相关的问题。这些狗中，大多数（26只）的问题被归类为行为方面的，包括与工作相关和与非工作相关的行为，14只归因于身体原因（主要是健康状况不佳）。有3只狗因与主人行为有关的问题被送回。被送回的第二只导盲犬比第一只或第三只导盲犬多，并且之前曾被用作导盲犬的狗可以成功地重新配对。定义匹配成功并非易事。并非所有被送回的狗都被主人认为是配对不当，也并非所有留用至退休的狗都被认为是良好的配对，这表明一些主人留用了他们认为配对不佳的狗。几乎所有认为狗配对不当的主人都承认这种配对在某些方面是好的。例如，一只因工作行为不佳而被认为配对不当的狗可能在家庭和/或其他社交行为方面表现良好。成功配对的情况也是如此，很少有主人声称自己拥有一只完美的狗。希望这些结果可能有助于导盲犬行业确定配对过程中的重要方面，和/或用于识别存在配对问题的领域。
