In August of 2009, a raucous public debate was sparked off by the refusal of the five-star Leofoo Hotel to seat a guide dog's foster family in their restaurant. In fact, thanks to educational efforts by concerned parties in recent years, there has been an obvious increase in the acceptance of visually impaired persons accompanied by guide dogs. But when foster families go out-even when they show their identification papers and the dog is wearing its eye-catching red "Guide Dog in Training" vest-they are often refused service on such grounds as "dogs shed," "dogs carry disease," and "other customers will be frightened." And that's just one of the issues that foster families have to consider.

He's working! He's not a pet!

"Foster families constitute the foundation of the guide dog system, and are the key to determining the stability of the dog's personality," explains William Chen, general manager of the Taiwan Guide Dog Association (TGDA), who is also a professional trainer.

The selection of guide dogs is very rigorous. After "breeding dogs" with good pedigrees give birth to pups and the pups are weaned after two to four months, they must be sent to a foster family for one or two years of socialization. On the one hand this allows them to grow up in a loving environment, and on the other to get through "basic training" to learn the things that all dogs should know. The foster families will invest the money and time to take the dogs out into the world and develop their ability to stay calm in the face of the unexpected. For example, they learn how to sleep through a classical music concert, to remain quiet throughout a 10-hour flight, to sit patiently even with delicious food right in front of their faces.... Only with this foundation will they be ready for the specialized training that will follow.

However, whereas in other countries there is a waiting list of families who want to host guide-dog pups, in Taiwan (despite the large number of people with dogs as pets) there are very few families indeed who are willing to invest the emotional energy required to raise an animal "that doesn't belong to us."

The barriers for becoming a foster family are not high, but there are lots of "screens" along the way.

The first is that there must be someone with a lot of free time. Each foster family must include a husband and wife and cannot have more than one child under five. The main caregiver (for the dog, not the child!) cannot have a nine-to-five job or be out of the house more than four hours per day, so that he or she has enough time to spend with the pup.

The second is that the foster family must have a correct understanding that a guide dog is a working dog, not a pet.

So that the young dog can one day grow up to accept the heavy responsibility of being "eyes to the blind," to become a helpmate and not a burden to the master, a well-regulated and disciplined upbringing is essential. The foster family must, right from square one, teach the dog-which, like all canines, is born with a strong innate sense of hierarchy-that "the master is top dog around here," so that the animal will respect all the rules and will not test the boundaries.

For example, the pup must learn to remain quiet, and is not allowed to use barking to attract the master's attention. Meals and sleep must be taken in very specific places, and the pup is absolutely forbidden to go onto the sofa or the master's bed. During walks, it cannot be allowed to indulge its whims to go here or there, or to spend a lot of time sniffing at scents (the pup is to be halted from doing so after three seconds). A guide dog in training cannot be allowed to "tug" at the leash or rush forward, but must be trained to stay in step with the person, always to the master's left side; if it lurches forward it should be pulled up short by the neck, and not allowed to continue on until after calming down. Nor may a foster family give their dog snacks, teach it to catch Frisbees or play other games, and so on. In fact, just about everything that dogs do to endear themselves to humans is off-limits for future guide dogs.

The grass is greener

Just as when teaching an infant these basic rules, this kind of training can drive foster parents crazy.

Lu Chia-hui, author of Taiwan's first-ever diary of a guide-dog foster mom, entitled Takky: Why Can't We Always Be Together, includes the following tale of dog-leash tugs-of-war between her dog Takky and his foster dad: Despite the fact that Lu had sewn a cushion onto the handle of the leash, Dad's hand was blistered and raw from trying to walk the dog, and he even resorted to tying the leash around his waist to save himself from being dragged along by the 30-kilogram beast. The only result of their routine of constant forward surges by the dog and equally incessant pulling back by the master was that they couldn't advance a single step, with the one difference being that by the end of each session Dad was exhausted, while the dog was still rarin' to go. But finally, after more than a week of continual training involving a nightmarish two-to-three-hour round per night, Takky's personality-or rather "dogality"-of insatiable curiosity and playfulness was tamed, and he began to look and act more like a calm and reliable working dog.

Huikuang Guide Dog Centre manager Hsu Ya-chuan says that the most common problem at foster families is the failure to teach the dog to wait to go out before it defecates or urinates. Because in the future the dog will have to accompany its blind master into many different kinds of venues, it must learn that it can never relieve itself on manmade materials like marble, brick, and the like. The best solution is to teach the dog to only relieve itself when it is on a patch of grass.

To this end, no matter what the weather-even a typhoon-the foster parents must take the dog to a specified place (like a neighborhood park) at a specified time to relieve itself. Alas, some canines are averse to getting their feet wet, or it may happen that another dog appears and disturbs the trainee, so the foster parents have to show enormous patience in waiting for the dog to "complete its mission."

To love and teach, not own

Moreover, if the dog makes the mistake of relieving itself out in public, the master cannot show anxiety or embarrassment, to avoid conveying a sense of insecurity to the dog. This is because once a dog has a frightening or startling experience, it is very difficult to get the dog to overcome that experience. By the same logic, foster parents absolutely are forbidden to strike the creature (because this will affect its trust in and affection for human beings), and also must ensure that it is not mistreated by any other person or dog. This latter problem is especially difficult, since future guide dogs are not allowed to bark furiously, bite, or race around frantically, so that the foster parents have to invest a lot of energy in figuring out tactics the dog can use to cope with attacks by other canines.

Sadly, after the dog has gone through all this careful training and protection, just the time when it is growing from a pup into an adult-at about one-and-a-half years old, when it is at its cutest and most affectionate-is precisely when it has to be turned over to a professional trainer and it is gradually withdrawn from the family's warm embrace.

Lu Chia-hui, who continually reminded herself that one day she would have to "let go," has written this about the outcome just described above: "If you want to have a dog like this, you have to face up to losing it. If you can't accept losing it, then you shouldn't take one in the first place."

But once you let go, regardless of whether the dog graduates into the ranks of genuine guide dogs (the success rate is about 50%) you will still have beautiful memories of this time you have committed for someone else's benefit, and, you can be sure, the dog will too!

(below) Many breeds are suitable for training as guide dogs. These days the most common are Labradors, golden retrievers, and "golden Lab" cross-breeds. The "pedigree" of each dog is rigorously screened to make sure they have no skeletons of nervous behavior or attacks on humans in the family closet, and the line must be free of any inheritable diseases.

(facing page) When a training session is over, its time to play! At times like these, a "bone" made from knotted cloth can be something for a leisurely chew or the object of a tug-of-war with the owner. The photo shows Liu Shuru, a guide dog foster parent, with "Super," a seven-month-old pup from Japan.