The recommendations in this report are limited to the areas investigated in this study and researchers’ understanding of participant responses. Most of the recommendations reflect well-established and widely accepted practices that, nonetheless, have not been fully and broadly implemented, as demonstrated in this report.
Recommendations for Guide Dog Schools
Guide dog schools should develop public educational resources on the following topics, which may be integrated into training classes, shared via public webinars, or provided as written handouts and web resources:
Integration of technology (i.e., smartphone apps) with guide dog travel.
Information on self-advocacy and legal rights to access.
Written materials that clients can share with family and friends about their guide dog and how to interact appropriately.
Information on mental health impacts of the guide dog lifestyle and basic mental health training for staff.
Guidance on what to expect when first returning home with a guide dog and ways to access peer support from other guide dog users.
Guidance on parenting young children with a guide dog.
Guide dog schools should consider the following outreach activities:
Expand targeted outreach to schools for the blind, vocational rehabilitation agencies, blindness consumer groups, and O&M professionals.
Feature diverse images and videos on their websites and social media, representing guide dog users from a wide range of cultural groups, ages, and lifestyles.
Highlight stories from alumni with multiple disabilities about the customized services and supports they received in training.
Involve alumni in outreach, both in person and on social media.
Ensure all digital content is fully compliant with current web accessibility guidelines.
Recommendations for Advocacy and Outreach
Rideshare companies should develop better procedures for driver education, monitoring, and enforcement of policies protecting the rights of guide dog users to access rideshare services.
Airlines should ensure that policies governing traveling with a guide dog are reasonable and robustly support individuals’ ability to travel with a guide dog regardless of size and breed.
Guide dog schools should collaborate with consumer organizations and other stakeholder groups to advocate for regulation and enforcement to protect the access rights of service animal users and to track instances of discrimination.
Guide dog schools should coordinate with legal organizations to ensure individual guide dog users have access to legal advice and recourse when discrimination occurs.
Federal, state, and local governments should ensure that accessibility regulations and guidance reflect that people with disabilities can use service dogs regardless of size or breed without onerous paperwork requirements while providing appropriate animal care, such as guide dog relief areas. Individuals should be able to file complaints and expect a reasonable degree of responsiveness and enforcement for violations of their rights.
Recommendations for O&M Professionals and Personnel Preparation Staff
O&M professionals should familiarize themselves with the benefits and drawbacks of the guide dog lifestyle and the existing guide dog school options available to their clients in order to give their clients balanced information on all travel tools available to them, including guide dogs.
O&M professionals should collaborate with guide dog mobility instructors (GDMIs) when serving clients who have received a guide dog.
Personnel preparation program staff should include robust exposure to guide dog teams as an integral part of the curriculum for O&M professionals.
