81. Guide Dogs

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Economics of Everyday Things – Episode 81: Guide Dogs

Hosted by Freakonomics Network & Zachary Crockett

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Introduction

In Episode 81 of The Economics of Everyday Things, host Zachary Crockett delves into the intricate world of guide dogs, exploring their training, the economics behind their provision, and the profound impact they have on the lives of visually impaired individuals. Through the personal story of Pat McKenna and insights from experts at the Seeing Eye, the episode uncovers the delicate balance between economics, training, and societal integration that makes guide dogs indispensable.

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Pat McKenna’s Journey with Guide Dogs

[01:05]
Pat McKenna introduces himself as a blind individual navigating a demanding commute from Highland Park, New Jersey, to Newark. His daily journey involves multiple modes of transportation and significant reliance on his guide dog, Raven.

Pat McKenna:
"Few days a week, I make an hour and a half commute from my home in Highland Park, New Jersey to my office in Newark. It involves a bus, a train and a lot of walking through busy streets and intersections." ([01:05])

McKenna's narrative underscores the essential role Raven plays in ensuring his safe and efficient navigation through urban landscapes.

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The Training and Development of Guide Dogs

[02:20]
Guide dogs are compared to the "Navy SEALs of canines," highlighting their rigorous training and the high standards they must meet. The process is extensive, costly, and highly selective, with a significant investment of approximately $75,000 per dog.

Pat McKenna:
"This animal has been specially bred, raised, and trained with all these remarkable qualities and traits. The cost is around $75,000, which is quality automobile territory, right? I mean, that's remarkable." ([02:54])

Peggy Gibbon, Director of Canine Development at the Seeing Eye, discusses the meticulous breeding and genetic screening processes to ensure only the best candidates become guide dogs.

Peggy Gibbon:
"The Labs have always been a very popular hunting dog, where they're working very closely with their person, and they've developed into a very willing dog with a strong work ethic." ([05:23])

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Socialization and Early Training

From birth, puppies undergo intensive socialization to prepare them for the complexities of urban navigation. Early exposure to various sounds, environments, and stimuli is crucial for developing the dogs' adaptability and confidence.

Peggy Gibbon:
"They're introduced to little puppy stairs and lots of different surfaces... different sound tracks for thunder and kettles whistling so that they can experience as much as they can." ([06:58])

Peggy Gibbon further emphasizes the importance of diverse experiences in shaping versatile guide dogs.

Peggy Gibbon:
"The more different shapes they've seen in people, the less it will stand out to them." ([07:23])

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Puppy Raising and Advanced Training

Puppy raisers, volunteers from diverse backgrounds, take the puppies into real-world settings to socialize them and instill confidence. This phase lasts 12 to 14 months, during which the dogs learn to navigate various public environments.

Pat McKenna:
"We have puppy raising clubs organized by county, and it's a real community... if you see 20 puppies going to see the tree at Rockefeller Center." ([07:59])

Advanced training involves teaching complex commands and scenarios, including intelligent disobedience, where dogs must refuse unsafe commands to protect their owners.

Pat McKenna:
"One very obvious example is if we're getting ready to cross the street... the dog will refuse the command to go, showing intelligent disobedience." ([11:53])

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Economic Aspects of Guide Dog Provision

The economic model behind guide dogs is heavily reliant on donations and grants, allowing organizations like the Seeing Eye to subsidize costs for recipients. The total expense per dog is about $75,000, while the organization funds most of this through annual donations totaling approximately $20 million.

Zachary Crockett:
"The total cost to raise and train a service dog, the labor, food, boarding, and health screenings, is around $75,000." ([20:58])

For recipients like McKenna, the financial burden is minimal, with only $150 for the first dog and $50 for any successor dog, covering basic pet expenses thereafter.

Pat McKenna:
"There's the food and the vet bills, and there's the toys... who doesn't like getting a nice toy on occasion, right?" ([21:31])

---

Legal Protections and Social Challenges

Guide dog owners are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which grants them access to most public spaces. However, societal misunderstandings and non-compliance with these laws often result in challenging interactions.

Pat McKenna:
"A guide dog public access challenge can look anything from the one extreme of get your expletive animal out of my store to a cleaning fee at a hotel." ([22:43])

These interactions place an emotional and educational burden on owners, who must navigate these challenges while advocating for their rights.

Pat McKenna:
"You want to do the right thing in educating this individual, but you never want to be that angry disabled person... Be patient, be kind, educate, be tolerant." ([23:11])

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The Personal Cost and Rewards of Guide Dog Ownership

Despite the financial assistance, ownership of a guide dog entails significant personal investments, including continuous education of the public and managing challenging situations. However, for McKenna, the benefits far outweigh the costs, enabling an adventurous and independent lifestyle.

Pat McKenna:
"We have gone on hikes in Vermont and Maine and Washington State... I learned early on that this dog is really up for anything at all, so long as I'm there." ([23:56])

---

Conclusion

Episode 81 of The Economics of Everyday Things provides an insightful exploration into the world of guide dogs, highlighting the intricate balance of economics, training rigor, and societal integration. Through Pat McKenna's experiences and expert commentary from Peggy Gibbon, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the invaluable role guide dogs play in fostering independence and enhancing the quality of life for the visually impaired.

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Notable Quotes:

• Pat McKenna: "This animal has been specially bred, raised, and trained with all these remarkable qualities and traits." ([02:54])

• Peggy Gibbon: "The Labs have always been a very popular hunting dog, where they're working very closely with their person..." ([05:23])

• Pat McKenna: "You want to do the right thing in educating this individual, but you never want to be that angry disabled person..." ([23:11])

---

For those interested in supporting the cause or learning more about guide dogs, consider reaching out to organizations like the Seeing Eye or local guide dog schools accredited by the International Guide Dog Association.

Transcript

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[Pat McKenna]

A.

[Zachary Crockett]

Few days a week, Pat McKenna makes an hour and a half commute from his home in Highland Park, New Jersey to his office in Newark. It involves a bus, a train and a lot of walking through busy streets and intersections. It's a complicated journey and McKenna gets some help from a navigator.

[Pat McKenna]

I leave the house at 7am There are several crossings where we stop. I listen for traffic and he watches for traffic and when it sounds like the coast is clear, he gets us across an intersection at the train platform. He navigates me along the edge of this yellow, bumpy surface right before the drop to the tracks. The train will arrive. He will find an open door that gets me to my stop in Newark. He finds the stairs for me. We navigate up and out to my office building. He knows when the elevator opens to race over to it. We go up to my floor. He finds my agency's office door and then my office within. He has to be on point and on focus the whole time. It really is a partnership endeavor.

[Zachary Crockett]

McKenna is blind and his companion is an 80 pound Labrador mix named Raven. He's one of nearly 20,000 guide dogs that are currently active around the world. Guide dogs are the Navy SEALs of canines. They go through an elite training protocol before they're entrusted to be a blind person's partner. Something as simple as chasing a squirrel one too many times can disqualify them from Consideration. And for the organizations that produce these dogs, the process is long and costly.

[Pat McKenna]

This animal has been specially bred, raised, and trained with all these remarkable qualities and traits. The cost has been approximated to be around $75,000, which is quality automobile territory, right? I mean, that's remarkable.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the Freakonomics radio network, this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett. Today, guide dogs. For many centuries, most visually impaired people who wanted to travel independently had to be accompanied by human companions or rely on sticks and their other senses to navigate. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, there were a number of efforts to develop more effective tools. But it wasn't until after the first World War, when thousands of soldiers returned home blind, that things began to change. In Europe, a new type of cane was invented that allowed blind people to navigate using vibrations on the ground. And for the first time, dogs were trained to assist with everyday guidance. In the 1920s, a wealthy Philadelphian named Dorothy Eustace and a young blind man named Morris Frank started the Seeing Eye, the first guide dog school in America. Frank went on a campaign with his guide dog buddy to educate the public about this new movement.

[Pat McKenna]

And as they showed me how to put the harness on the dog, I knew I had my independence.

[Zachary Crockett]

Today, there are 99 guide dog schools in 33 different countries that are accredited by the International Guide Dog Association. The Seeing Eye, based in Morristown, New Jersey, is the largest and oldest one. Over 96 years, they've bred, raised, and trained nearly 19,000 guide dogs.

[Peggy Gibbon]

I manage a lot of dogs.

[Zachary Crockett]

That's Peggy Gibbon. She's the director of canine development at the Seeing Eye, and she oversees the entire process of bringing a new guide dog into the world, starting with genetics. Certain breeds have traits that make them a good fit for the guide dog lifestyle. While you might see the occasional German shepherd or poodle, Gibbons says nearly 95% of today's guide dogs are Labradors, sometimes crossbred with golden retrievers.

[Peggy Gibbon]

The Labs have always been a very popular hunting dog, where they're working very closely with their person, and they've developed into a very willing dog with a strong work ethic. They've also been a relatively healthy breed, as well as being an appropriate size, having a good coat that makes them durable and weatherproof, all of those things come into being an appropriate dog for this job.

[Zachary Crockett]

Most of the puppies bred at the Seeing Eye are born on site from parents who were guide dogs. They have to come from a solid pedigree with a history of flawless orthopedic Health Good hips, elbows and shoulders. And after it's born, each puppy goes through a genetic screening to assess for health risks.

[Peggy Gibbon]

In the time that I have worked with the breeding program, the changes in the information available to us are truly astounding. We went from basically looking at pedigrees to having genotypes on all our dogs, telling us what genes they have that may influence various illnesses and diseases.

[Zachary Crockett]

A potential guide dog doesn't just have to be genetically superior. It also has to have the right attitude. Once a puppy is born, it's regularly handled by staff members to acclimate it to humans. And at a few weeks old, it's put into a room on the Seeing Eye campus that replicates the chaos of the outside world. In a controlled environment.

[Peggy Gibbon]

They'Re introduced to little puppy stairs and lots of different surfaces. There are mirrors and tunnels and wobble boards. And we have volunteers who run the vacuum cleaner. Different sound tracks for thunder and kettles whistling so that they can experience as much as they can.

[Zachary Crockett]

There are even some costumes involved just.

[Peggy Gibbon]

So that the puppies can see different viewpoints. That person with a big coat and funny looking glasses and mask can be a little daunting on the street, but the more different shapes they've seen in people, the less it will stand out to them.

[Zachary Crockett]

At around two months, it's time for the puppies to go see the real world. And that's a job for puppy raisers. The Seeing eye has around 500 volunteers who sign up to temporarily adopt the puppies, ranging from kids in local 4H programs to retirees.

[Peggy Gibbon]

We have puppy raising clubs organized by county, and it's a real community. They meet regularly and then they go on outings. At Christmas time. We get a lot of the clubs going into New York City, so it's a little bit of a spectacle. If you see 20 puppies going to see the tree at Rockefeller Center.

[Zachary Crockett]

The Seeing Eye gives these volunteers a stipend to care for the dogs for the next 12 to 14 months of their lives.

[Peggy Gibbon]

Their job is to teach that puppy about the world, to socialize them, to get them out, to give them a wide variety of experiences. We need a dog that's very confident to go out there working in the environment. They have to make decisions about getting around obstacles about stopping if there's a car coming.

[Zachary Crockett]

During this phase, the Seeing Eye receives reports on how its puppies are acclimating. If a dog lacks confidence or if it's too easily distracted, it might get cut from the program early on.

[Peggy Gibbon]

Most dogs like to chase Squirrels, right? But can they learn not to chase the squirrel? If they just have such a strong interest in that squirrel that they can't learn not to, they probably shouldn't be a seeing eye dog.

[Zachary Crockett]

Those that can control their squirrel chasing urges return to the seeing eye for what Gibbon calls their higher learning, the PhD phase of their education. They're assigned to a four month course with a professional dog trainer. Their job is to teach the dog the skills it needs to assist someone who is blind.

[Peggy Gibbon]

I'm generally assigning six new dogs to an instructor. The instructor comes in in the morning, takes each dog out individually to work with them and get to know them. They start out in a fairly quiet neighborhood where they're really focusing on learning to stop at the curbs, make straight crossings, and getting some initial experience with clearance as well as traffic. Then they move on to a slightly more challenging route so there's more traffic, more obstacles, more pedestrians, other people walking dogs, the parking meters all along the sidewalks, and sidewalk cafes.

[Zachary Crockett]

Training a dog to do something like stop at a curb at a busy intersection involves lots of repetition and praise.

[Peggy Gibbon]

At every down curb and every up curb, we stop, we praise them, and then the dog starts to stop themselves. And then maybe they make a mistake. You stumble over the curb and they go, oh. And you go back and you repeat and you allow the dog to be successful.

[Zachary Crockett]

A common misconception is that guide dogs understand traffic lights. But Gibbon says that's not the case. A guide dog will stop at the curb, but it's the owner's job to assess for signals in traffic.

[Peggy Gibbon]

The dogs don't even know if there's a light there or not. So the person needs to know their environment. They need to know where, what kind of intersection it is. Is it a stop sign here or is there a light? They will listen for the traffic pattern, and when they hear the safe time to cross, they will give the command to the dog. It's the dog's job to make sure it's safe getting across. If there's a car, they need to stop or react in appropriate way, and then they need to cross straight to the other side.

[Zachary Crockett]

A person who is blind will use verbal commands, hand signals, and body to provide directions. The dog wears a harness with a handle, and when it hears a command, it pulls forward and follows orders. But on occasion, a guide dog also has to exhibit something called intelligent disobedience, the ability to refuse a command that is potentially dangerous.

[Peggy Gibbon]

One very obvious example is if we're getting ready to cross the street, Maybe it sounded safe, but there's a car making a right on red right in front of you. They cut you off. The dog will refuse the command to go, showing intelligent disobedience, because if they went, it would be dangerous.

[Zachary Crockett]

A particular challenge has been the growing popularity of electric vehicles.

[Peggy Gibbon]

When we first started to see a lot of hybrid cars on the street, we acquired one for training and found that the biggest impact was on the person, not the dog. The dogs are more visual, they're catching the movement of the car. But when you're sailing along the sidewalk and everything's clear and you've done the sidewalk a million times and all of a sudden a car comes shooting out of a driveway, that's one of the most dangerous situations. And if it's a quiet electric car, you don't even hear it. So we're relying entirely on that dog, seeing it and responding.

[Zachary Crockett]

Once a dog has mastered everything from curbs to Teslas, the instructor will wear a blindfold during daily walks. If the dog performs without any incidents, it moves on to a wider variety of public settings.

[Peggy Gibbon]

They start to do bus and train rides, they start to go into stores, they start to go to the malls, to lots of different places so that they can generalize the use of those fundamental skills.

[Zachary Crockett]

Around 30% of the dogs that start the program don't make the cut. Those are adopted out and become pets. The rest are certified as guide dogs and move on to the final stage of the process, getting matched with their owner. But even that is no simple task.

[Pat McKenna]

If you were to put a 90 pound Labrador with a high pace and high pull with sort of a smaller, more frail individual, I mean, you would just watch them go flying down the street.

[Zachary Crockett]

That's coming up.

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The Economics of Everyday Things is sponsored by NetSuite. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Rates will rise or fall. Inflation's up or down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 41,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle. The number one Cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com everyday things. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com everyday Things netsuite.com everyday things When Pat McKenna was four years old, he got really sick. He remembers spending a lot of time in the hospital with loud machines and pensive doctors, and when he left, he was blind. He was due to start kindergarten that fall.

[Pat McKenna]

I learned what's referred to as orientation and mobility skills. That is the skill set that a blind person learns so they can travel independently, navigating their home, their workplace, down the street.

[Zachary Crockett]

For many years he used a white cane, a special device that allows blind and visually impaired people to navigate by feeling for vibrations in the ground. But when he was accepted to Rutgers law school in 2001, he faced a daunting commute.

[Pat McKenna]

I did not have the experience in navigating a high density urban area, right wide roads, a lot of traffic moving fast, tall buildings. The sound is bouncing back and reverberating off of those tall buildings. I found it extraordinarily disorienting. There are many, many people who are blind or visually impaired who navigate Newark safely, effectively and independently every day. By Cain I just want to emphasize, In March of 2001, I was not one of them.

[Zachary Crockett]

So McKenna contacted the seeing Eye and applied for a guide dog. Matching a guide dog with its new owner is a complex process at the Seeing Eye. It involves an extensive interview that covers an applicant's lifestyle, where they live and work, their travel preferences, and even their walking speed. Again, here's Peggy Gibbon.

[Peggy Gibbon]

I could have two very different people that I'm looking for dogs for, and the same dog is not the best, best dog for both of them. It's very much a delicate art and very personal. Fundamental are energy level, confidence, manageability. Does the person live in New York City and use the subway? You choose a dog that's going to enjoy that kind of environment versus the person that lives on a farm and maybe does a lot of work on streets that on roads that are rural and don't have sidewalks.

[Zachary Crockett]

A character profile is created for each person and each dog. And then candidates are invited to come to the Seeing Eye campus for a month and find the right dog.

[Peggy Gibbon]

The instructor who will be working with them does what we call a Juno walk. The instructor is pretending to be the dog and guiding the person with the harness handle, giving them instruction in how they will be handling the dog once there is a dog on the other end, but also getting a feel for how the person moves. How fast do they want to go, how much pull do they want, how agile are they in following lateral movements? If a dog stops quickly, are they able to do that? And how do they talk to the dog? Are they somebody who's very bubbly? Are they somebody who is going to be maybe a little bit more stern?

[Zachary Crockett]

The criteria for receiving a guide dog can vary a bit depending on the school, but in general, an applicant must be legally blind and also physically capable of navigating independently.

[Peggy Gibbon]

A large portion of the population of people who are blind are elderly. Macular degeneration is, I believe, the most significant cause of blindness today, but it's generally in people who may not still have the physical skills. To be traveling with a dog, you need to be getting out and working that dog regularly. Because the dogs have this really strong skill and they need to practice it, those skills will fade.

[Zachary Crockett]

After going through the application process in 2001, Pat McKenna was matched with a petite and feisty black lab named Asta. She guided him all through law school and the start of his legal career until she eventually retired due to a heart condition. Today, McKenna's on his fifth dog through the Seeing Eye.

[Pat McKenna]

I'm presently working with Raven, who is very joyful and he has a lot of fun. He can be a bit much sometimes in the house when he's getting all his toys out and so on, but he's A blast.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the seeing eye. The total cost to raise and train a service dog, the labor, food, boarding, and health screenings, is around $75,000. The organization gets around $20 million a year in funding from donations and grants. That lets it almost entirely subsidize the cost for the dog owner. Recipients like McKenna pay just $150 for their first dog and $50 for any successor dog. Once it's in their possession, they cover all the typical pet stuff.

[Pat McKenna]

Well, you know, there's the food and the vet bills, and there's the toys, right? I mean, who doesn't like getting a nice toy on occasion, right?

[Zachary Crockett]

For most pet owners, the basics add up to around $2,000 per year. But McKenna says there's a hidden cost to guide dog ownership that often isn't discussed.

[Pat McKenna]

You end up having to regularly educate and have these interactions, whether it's, oh, please don't pet my dog right now. He's working to know this is a trained service animal and he can be in your restaurant right now. And I would argue there is a cost to having to reach deep to find that calm educational and professional space.

[Zachary Crockett]

McKenna and thousands of other guide dog owners in America are protected by the Americans with Disabilities act, or ada. Federal and state laws generally permit them to bring their dogs into most public spaces where pets aren't typically allowed. Hotels, restaurants, stores, hospitals, schools. But a lot of people either don't understand or just don't care for the law.

[Pat McKenna]

A guide dog public access challenge can look anything from the one extreme of get your expletive animal out of my store to a cleaning fee at a hotel. That's another one. If you are going to stay in our hotel, then you have to agree to a $250 additional cleaning fee. No, that's actually not acceptable or permissible.

[Zachary Crockett]

For many guide dog owners, these interactions present an internal dilemma.

[Pat McKenna]

You want to do the right thing in educating this individual, but you never want to be that angry disabled person who's yelling and screaming, who got caught on video, and who now goes viral. Be patient, be kind, educate, be tolerant. And if you can't turn around, walk out and come back a couple days later.

[Zachary Crockett]

Public access challenges like this sometimes dissuade visually impaired people from getting a guide dog altogether. But McKenna says for him, the costs are worth it. Outside of his weekly commutes in New Jersey, he lives an adventurous life, and the dogs have been there with him every step of the way.

[Pat McKenna]

We have gone on hikes in Vermont and Maine and Washington State, New York, Pennsylvania, last summer I had Raven in the canoe with me. He wasn't guiding me from the canoe, obviously, but it was cool to have him there. I learned early on that this dog is really up for anything at all, so long as I'm there.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett. This episode was produced by me and Sarah Lilly and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. We had help from Daniel Moritz Rapson. I love the phrase intelligent disobedience. I'm going to use that the next time I have a disagreement with my boss about something.

[Peggy Gibbon]

The Freakonomics Radio Network the Hidden side of Everything.

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