Who picks up a guide dogs poop? | Mumsnet (2024)

Legally guide dog owners don't have to pick up their dog's poo. However, Guide Dogs encourage owners to pick it up if they can. On training owners are taught how to do this without being able to see it. Essentially the dog only toilets on command and when it does you feel its back and from the curve can tell whether it is a wee or a poo. If a poo you point your foot towards the dog's bottom so when it is finished your foot is pointing towards the poo.

However, it's not viable for all owners to do so eg if the dog is caught short and uses a gutter on a busy road or if the owner has difficulty bending - hence the law :)

My blind friend picks it up himself.

Guide dogs are trained to do busy (as pp said) at a specigic time like in the morning at home in the garden. However they do sometimes have to go.
My BF xan tell when his do need to go so he gets poo bag at the ready and uses his hand to guide his way down the dogs back while she poos so that when shes done he is in the right area. After the first grab he gets another poo bag and checks the area for stray poop.

I was once told off by a passer by for not helping my friend pick up his dogs poo. BF said "why should she its my dog, i dont change her kids sh*tty bums"

This is enlightening.

But also infuriating - I live in an area where sighted some people don't clean up after their dogs.

Yet a registered blind person can in some cases. Amazing.

I love dogs. I love working dogs. I really do not like lazy owners who don't clean up after their dogs.

Good question OP :)

That's not totally true.

They do sometimes just need to go and they do so. The owner does have to say the trigger word but no decent guide dog owner would ignore his dogs need for a poo.

We are guide dog puppy walkers

The puppy is trained to wee on BUSY command and poo on BUSY BUSY or BIG BUSY command

This they learn from 8 weeks and usually get to be under control with it from 14 weeks ish (iirc) we haven't done it for a while due to my DH ill health

Anyway the point being, that the puppy learns to do it on command at home in a specific area in garden, that is fenced off, before leaving the house and to hold on until returning home

They learn this by us getting so excited each time that they wee or poo on command

As in you take them outside to the spending area and as they squat to wee or poo and in the process, you say the words then straight afterwards you get soooooo excited that they realise that they have done something terrific in your eyes that they want to do it again the next time

This is done many times a day then they get to learn what to do when the command is given to then get huge amounts of cuddles and praise and an excited puppy walker

Obviously if they are out and about for a long time then the puppy will be trained to go after the command is given followed by lots of excitement and praise

The more time and energy that is put in at the beginning by the puppy walker the quicker it happens and also you have clean and dry puppies in the house with less accidents

Puppies give signals to show they want to go or you will know by their routine and so they wait until they are in suitable safe place

Our 5 year old ex guide dog puppy (who came back to us as a pet) knows that she gets to go to the park or beach or woods or wherever after she has done her busy and big busy in spending pen and so she never poos on a walk as she has done it at home beforehand

If we were out for a long time she still wouldn't just go she would signal that she wanted to and we would find a suitable safe place then give the big busy command that she would then poo

Think of pavlov and his dogs

So if a guide dog owner knew the routine of their dog they would want it to go at home before going out but if that wasn't possible the dog wouldn't just go on the footpath it would wait for the command so the guide dog owner was in control and be expecting it with the poo bag ready iyswim

The point I was trying to make is that guide dogs and puppies are still dogs but are well trained dogs they aren't robots

Guide dog owners do not have to pick up under the laws, though I know some do try to. The reason for the exemption is pretty clear really.

They are trained to go on command in suitable areas, though occasionally they can get caught short just like any other creature.

"If only you could train children like that!"
You can. In fact, except that most people aren't going to use a 'command' word, isn't that how most people potty train their children?

I was once told "raise children, dogs and horses the same way" and it's always more or less worked for me. Although my daughter did think she was a dog until she was 4.

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