by Ann Edie
I wake to a beautiful, warm spring morning, all the more welcome as it follows a particularly frigid and snowy winter. I go about my morning routine -- shower, dress, wake my daughter, have breakfast, feed and groom my guide, grab my bag, harness my guide and emerge into the green scented air and the sounds of twittering birds. I pick up the harness handle for the short walk to work, and give the "forward" command. My guide takes up a cheery pace and I breathe deeply as we walk along the quiet residential streets, turning right and left, crossing the small streets, then pressing the accessible traffic signal button and crossing the noisy main street which is busy with school buses and cars bringing students and teachers to school. We walk along a sidewalk, down a driveway and through the front door of the public high school where I work. The trip flows fluidly and seems as natural as the flight of birds. Yet if I stand back and imagine the effect we might have on an out-of-town visitor observing from his car, I realize that this routine daily occurrence of a blind woman walking to work with her guide is still a unique and remarkable event. For the guide by my side is not a Labrador retriever or a German shepherd dog, nor indeed, a dog of any breed at all, but an elegant little black and white pinto miniature horse named Panda.
How has this happened? How have Panda and I come to be partners in this unique experiment? In some ways it seems incredible and amazing! But in other ways it seems as natural and inevitable as the blossoming of the apple trees or the emergence of the spring peepers from their winter silence.
Looking back, I can see that three major threads of my life story have been woven together to form the fabric of my involvement in the Panda Project. These three threads are my experience of blindness, my love of animals, especially dogs and horses, and my lifelong professional and avocational interest in the education of both humans and animals.
I have been legally blind since birth, but I grew up in an era when blindness was considered barely respectable, at a time when a person was accepted only to the extent that he or she conformed to the generally held standard of "normal," which did not include being blind. So I grew up trying to be a sighted person, but living in a blind body. I was taught to read large print with thick heavy reading glasses that forced me to read with my nose pressed to the page and my forehead plastered against a high-intensity reading lamp. And what I learned was to hate reading. I was not taught cane travel, because that would make me "look blind," which was the worst of all possible fates. So I learned never to travel to unfamiliar places alone, and never to travel anywhere at night. And I learned to dread tripping or bumping into something or failing to recognize someone who waved a hand or honked a car horn at me, because of the inevitable snickers and taunts of my peers and the awful feelings of failure and inadequacy that would invariably follow. And the main lesson I learned was that, no matter how hard I might try, I was a pretty incompetent sighted person. Although the doctors had told my parents that my vision would remain stable, it gradually deteriorated to the point where I am now almost totally blind.
I didn't become aware of the organized blind movement or the disability rights movement, and realize that the problem was not my blindness, but rather the attitudes of the society toward blindness and blind people, until the 1980s. With this new insight I sought and received cane travel instruction, and reveled in the additional information the cane provided me about the traveling environment. I taught myself Braille, and gloried in the new freedom of being able to read comfortably anywhere -- in the car or in bed, in a meeting or in the bus terminal, in front of a class or in an easy chair in my own living room. I delighted in being truly literate for the first time in my life!
After a first career in college level teaching of the Chinese language and the teaching of English as a second language, I went back to graduate school to complete a master's of education in teaching students who are blind and visually impaired. Since 1995 I have worked as a teacher of the visually impaired in a public school system and have done my best to educate both my students and the general community about the respectability and normalcy of blindness and about the alternative techniques and skills which offer a person who is blind freedom, confidence, competence, and respectability.
My love of animals, too, seems to be a characteristic that I was born with. My family had pet dogs and cats, but they were kept outside, and no one in the family was particularly pet- obsessed. Yet as a child I played with stuffed animals instead of dolls, and trained the family pets to do tricks and simple obedience exercises such as sit and come. As a teenager I trained my miniature poodle to serve as an unofficial guide for me, taking me around obstacles on leash when I took him out for walks at night when I couldn't see anything. As an adult I trained and competed my schipperke, collie, and my Japanese mixed breed dog in obedience trials and fun matches.
I grew up in New Jersey, near the campus of the Seeing Eye, and I always admired the Seeing Eye dogs and wished for one of my own someday. But it was not until 1991 that I was matched with Bailey, a chocolate Labrador retriever from the Seeing Eye. I chose a guide dog as my preferred mobility aid because I enjoy walking at a brisk pace, but hated the jarring of the cane catching in cracks in the road, and because I lived in a rural area at the time and found it difficult to find landmarks with the cane on long stretches of country roads and gravel shoulders. I liked the feeling of added confidence and security that comes from being accompanied down isolated country roads or through crowded city streets by a large canine, no matter what a marshmallow he is in reality. And I simply enjoyed working and living in partnership with dogs.
Bailey was a calm, reliable, steadfast guide and companion. He was very adaptable, which was a requirement for any partner who was going to fit into my busy lifestyle as a mother of three and a special education teacher. For nine years Bailey accompanied me to family gatherings and on school field trips, to every level of educational institution from preschools through graduate school, to entertainments from the ballet to the Fourth of July fireworks, to soccer games and whale watches, to mountain resorts and amusement park rides, to hospital rooms and job interviews, to cocktail parties and horse barns. Bailey's death in the fall of 2000 left a huge hole in my life, and began a two- year period of emotional and physical upheaval and adjustment, which is only now beginning to resolve into a new path forward. During these past two years, I have tried unsuccessfully to build partnerships with two successor guide dogs, but both relationships ended in the early retirement of the dog, one after three months and the other after just under a year.
My early experience with horses consisted entirely of a rare pony ride in the city park. Yet, despite the fact that no one else in my family had any interest in horses, I begged to take riding lessons, and was granted this wish when I was 10 years old. I continued to ride throughout high school and then sporadically during college and during the years when I was raising my family. In 1995 I returned to serious involvement with horses when I met both Alexandra Kurland, who would become my riding instructor, horse trainer, and mentor, and Magnet, the athletic and gentlemanly gray Arabian who would become my first riding horse and equine teacher. Magnet has since been joined by my two Icelandic horses, Fengur, a sporty yellow dun gelding, and Sindri, a stately chestnut stallion with a truly impressive flaxen mane and tale.
I met Alexandra Kurland at a time when she was exploring the use of clicker training in her work with horses. Clicker training, or applied operant conditioning, is a method of training based on the science of learning theory. It provides the learner with a "bridging signal" which lets him or her know exactly when he/she has produced the desired action or behavior, and is followed by a reward or positive reinforcer. Over the past half century, this training method had proven extremely effective first with sea mammals, such as the killer whales and dolphins that perform at Sea World, and later with zoo animals, dogs that work in obedience, search and rescue, agility, and therapy animals that perform in commercials, movies, TV, and live shows, pet dogs, birds, llamas, and many other species and performance areas.
Alexandra had seen some of the results achieved with this method with dogs and zoo animals. She was looking for a better way to communicate to our horses what we want them to do, without incurring some of the undesirable effects associated with traditional horse training methods, such as fear, avoidance, and aggression. Her experimentation led her to write a pioneering book, "Clicker Training for Your Horse," in 1998, and to a series of teaching videos, teaching clinics, and presentations on clicker training across this country, in Canada, and in Europe.
I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity over the past eight years to work with Alex and to learn to communicate with my horses and dogs through the use of the clicker and operant conditioning techniques. I credit clicker training with the fact that our horses are happy and eager to come out and work with us. They pay close attention to our cues about what we would like them to do. They try hard to produce the behavior we request. They learn quickly and enjoy our company, praise, and attention, as well as the food treats that we give them as rewards. Our horses and other clicker-trained animals become creative problem solvers and imaginative playmates as well as safe, physically and emotionally sound working partners.
I first heard of the phenomenon of miniature guide horses in the spring of 2000, through reprints of several articles from the popular media in "Pawtracks," the magazine of Guide Dog Users, Inc. The articles described the work of Don and Janet Burleson of North Carolina to train miniature horses to act as guides for blind people. I was immediately intrigued by the idea, for I knew from my relationships with my riding horses that horses are certainly intelligent enough to do this kind of work, and that they possess many characteristics which lend themselves to guide work. I had often thought that my Magnet would make a wonderful guide, if only he were small enough to fit into human living spaces. He already performed several of the functions of a good guide dog, such as taking me to the paddock gate, stopping before going through gates and doorways, and making footing decisions and avoiding obstacles when I was either riding him or walking beside him. But up until this time, I had not been aware that there actually were horses that were about the same size as our guide dogs. I called the Burlesons, and had a pleasant talk with them about training methods and their results so far, about which they were very enthusiastic.
At that time, the Burlesons had trained one of their personal pet miniature horses to guide, but they hadn't yet trained any for placement with a blind person. And my guide dog, Bailey, although ten and a half years old, was still healthy and working well. So I filed the information about guide horses away for future reference.
In the fall of 2000 Bailey became suddenly ill, and just four days after his 11th birthday, he died. I picked up my cane and went on with my life, while working through the process of mourning Bailey's loss and planning for my future mobility needs. Since I am a school teacher and have little time during the school year, I knew that it would not be until the summer of 2001 that I could get a successor guide dog. Then in early 2001 I began to hear again about the Burlesons and the Guide Horse Foundation they had established. I read that they were training a miniature horse named Cuddles for Dan Shaw, a man from Maine. Although I was concerned about the frivolous tone of some of the articles I was reading, and about the attitude toward blind people exhibited in these articles, I still felt that the idea of using miniature horses as guides had great merit. In this time of mourning the death of my first guide dog and adjusting to life without him, I was keenly aware of the benefit of the 30-year lifespan of horses. It would be wonderful to have a guide who would remain with me for a whole working lifetime, rather than having to suffer such a deep loss and go through the six month to a year period of adjustment to a new guide dog every few years. I spoke again with the Burlesons by phone, and decided to make a trip down to North Carolina to see their program. At the same time I applied for a successor guide dog, and arranged to train with the new dog in July of 2001.
The weekend that Alex and I spent in Kittrell, N.C. marked the conclusion of Dan Shaw's training period before going home with his new guide horse, Cuddles. We toured the Burleson's farm, followed Dan and Cuddles on several training walks, test-walked a couple of horses in training, had extensive conversations with Dan, Don and Janet Burleson, and several other guests who were also present. We were favorably impressed with the work that we saw Cuddles doing. She was well-mannered, businesslike and focused on her work, calm and steady in her temperament, and accepted in stores, restaurants, and other public places. Dan Shaw was enthusiastic about his new guide and about the freedom and exhilaration of being able to travel independently and at a fast pace. He and Cuddles seemed to have already formed a close bond, and were working smoothly as a team.
Yet the trip raised as many questions in our minds as it answered. We wondered whether horses could really adjust to living all or most of the time in the human environment, whether their digestive and respiratory systems could comfortably conform to human schedules and conditions, whether they could perform all the functions of a guide dog, and whether the theoretical longevity offered by the horse could, in fact, be realized. Most of all, we wondered whether the new horse training methods which had proven so successful with our full-sized horses could produce fine, happy, enthusiastic working guide horses, without the stress on the animal caused by traditional, correction-based training methods.
Out of curiosity, we began investigating the availability of very small miniature horses. We spoke to breeders and miniature horse fanciers, visited many web sites, watched sales videos, and eventually focused in on a couple of promising young horses from Grosshill Farm in Florida. In August 2001, we traveled to Florida to visit Grosshill Farm and met some of their fine miniature horses. We were particularly impressed by a lively and confident 7-month-old pinto filly named Panda, who had already demonstrated her adaptability and physical and temperamental soundness through a couple of very successful months on the horse show circuit.
At that point, Alex and I made the decision to go ahead and undertake the research project which has come to be called the "Panda Project," to try and answer some of the questions that I and other blind people had about whether miniature horses could really do the job of providing safe and effective guide service to blind people and could comfortably live in close relationship with humans and in the human-built environment. Soon Panda was mine. She arrived in New York in September 2001, and has been living with her trainer, Alexandra Kurland and been in "puppy raising" and guide training for about 18 months.
Because the outcome of our work with Panda was by no means certain, and because I still loved working with dogs and wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream of partnering with a German shepherd guide dog, I had decided to go ahead and train with a successor guide dog in the summer of 2001. I knew that I would need to devote my time and energy to adjusting with my new guide dog, and that, therefore, I would be involved in Panda's early training more as a consultant than as a direct handler. We expected this period of my adjustment to a successor guide dog to last from six months to a year, and we thought that that period would coincide nicely with Panda's initial socialization and basic pre-guide training.
Although my efforts to work with two German shepherd guides ended in career changes for each of the dogs, and, therefore, the guide dog piece of my life's dream has not fallen into place, this leaves me free, at just the right time, to participate more actively in Panda's formal guide training and transition to working guide. Panda has certainly more than fulfilled her part of the plan. With the advice and consultation of guide dog trainers, horse trainers, animal behaviorists, and veterinarians, we have planned and implemented a training program designed to expose Panda to all the environments and situations that she might encounter as a guide, to teach her the responses and behaviors required for guide work, to develop her confidence and initiative for decision making, and to be sensitive to her physical, emotional, and social needs as a horse.
Panda has been trained through the use of clicker training techniques which rely mainly on positive reinforcement rather than on correction. We believe that these techniques produce an effective, relaxed, and willing working guide. Panda has already begun to provide us with data upon which to answer many of the questions which prompted us to undertake this project.
As prey animals, aren't horses too flighty and spooky to deal with all the surprises and alarming stimuli of modern life that they would encounter as guides for people who are blind? Panda has a calm, steady, confident manner. She has accepted and works well around city traffic, noise, and bustle, loose dogs, construction work, blowing objects, and the blaring sirens and flashing lights of emergency vehicles. She responds to these stimuli with appropriate levels of caution and matter-of-fact interest, but without panic or flight reactions.
Can horses go everywhere we need them to go as our guides? Panda has easily learned to negotiate steps, go through doorways, ride on elevators, ride in cars, stand quietly in restaurants and offices, work through narrow store aisles, and work in crowded pedestrian areas such as malls and conference centers. In the coming months we will be working with her on public transportation, escalators, and other specific situations which we may encounter during travel. So far she has proven that with proper introduction and practice, as is true for guide dogs, she adjusts easily to these environmental elements. Panda is larger, and therefore takes up a little more room than most guide dogs, and horses cannot as easily curl up and fit under a chair. This is one of the considerations a blind person will need to take into account when weighing the relative merits of available mobility solutions.
Can horses be house trained? Yes, Panda is reliably house trained, and like guide dogs, she has learned to relieve on leash and on cue in a variety of locations and on a schedule which fits our requirements. I pick up after her just as I would for a guide dog. She regularly waits several hours between relief breaks when indoors or working, and has gone up to 10 hours between relief breaks when necessary. She will also indicate her need to relieve by ringing a bell hung on the door when at home or by becoming fidgety when in other locations. We have not yet asked her to go overnight without access to a relief area, so this is a question yet to be investigated.
Do horses need to graze and have access to grass for much of the time? No, many horses do not get the major part of their nutrition from free grazing. Although Panda certainly enjoys a half-hour of grazing on summer grass in the backyard or public park, it would not be healthy for her to spend long periods of time feeding on grass, as she would put on too much weight. When at home in her stall or pen, she eats mainly grass hay, with a tiny bit of grain, carrots, and other fruit and vegetables as training treats. When at work in public places or indoors, she can be fed hay pellets which are as neat and convenient to carry as kibble for dogs. Panda will eat from a bowl just as a dog does. Although many horses are fed only twice a day, it is best for the equine digestive system if they are fed more frequently.
Can horses learn all the tasks of a guide for people who are blind? Panda has shown remarkable intelligence, focus, eagerness to learn, willingness to please, ability to solve problems and plan ahead, and confidence in taking the initiative in decision making in her guide work. She has learned to mark a straight line down a sidewalk or corridor, to walk along the left edge of a road without sidewalks, to stop at curbs, even blended curbs, to stop at steps and other changes of elevation or footing, to work around stationary and moving obstacles, to avoid overhead obstacles, to follow directional commands, to work at varying paces, to find landmarks such as doors and signal buttons, to judge the safety of street crossings, and to use intelligent disobedience when the safety of the team is at stake. She has demonstrated an excellent memory for routes and landmarks, but she does not object to taking a different course from the familiar one when I ask her to.
She is particularly good at judging footing, and is cautious on snow and ice, which we have had lots of this winter in the Northeast. Judging and avoiding waist-high and overhead obstacles, such as construction tape, railings, protruding truck mirrors, and signs, is another of Panda's strengths. She is not distracted by other animals or by the attention of curious people, but she will wait patiently in heel position when I stop to chat. Panda's training is not yet complete, but she has performed successfully all the tasks and in all the situations we have asked of her so far, and we are very pleased with her progress and confident about her future as a guide.
What kind of equipment do you use on a guide horse? Panda wears a standard miniature horse halter on her head, to which I attach a guide-dog-type leather leash. We have had a guiding harness made for her by Dave Shabbot of American Leather Specialties in Massachusetts, who makes harnesses and leashes for many of the guide dog programs. Panda's harness is much the same shape as that of a guide dog, except that it has a U shape in the middle of the back strap to fit comfortably around her withers. We chose an ergonomically designed harness handle, which allows my wrist and elbow to rest in a more natural position and reduces strain on the arm and shoulder.
Does Panda wear sneakers? We have not found that there is a need for Panda to wear non-skid footwear for working on indoor or outdoor surfaces. If the need does arise in the future, we will probably choose shoes specifically designed for miniature horses, rather than sneakers designed for human children.
Can horses adjust to the central heating of the human indoor environment? Panda seems very happy and comfortable in indoor environments. She actively seeks out heaters and enjoys napping close to heat sources, much as a dog or a cat might do. She also enjoys air conditioning in the summer. She can, however, comfortably spend the night in unheated quarters except in the coldest of winter conditions, when a blanket or heated shelter is required.
Does Panda live in the house or in a barn? Panda has spent large blocks of time in the house or in other buildings with her trainer and handler during the day, and she seems to enjoy the mental stimulation and social companionship this affords. At night she stays in a small pen or stall, equivalent to a crate or kennel for a dog, either in the garage or in a small shed or barn in the backyard.
How does the care of a miniature horse differ from that of a dog? The daily care of a miniature guide horse is very similar to the care of a guide dog. Besides food, water, and shelter, the horse needs daily grooming to look her best. It takes about the same amount of time to groom a miniature horse as it does a retriever or German shepherd dog. Horses require hoof trimming by a farrier, equivalent to clipping the nails of a dog, once every six to eight weeks. Veterinary check-ups and immunizations should occur on a regular schedule, about every six months. Horses do not require regular medication for heartworm or external parasites, but they do need internal worming medication about every six weeks. Miniature horses benefit from daily work and from the social contact and companionship of spending time with their human partners, but they do not require as much physical exercise or play time as many dogs do. Just as our guide dogs adopt us as their pack members, miniature horses view us as their herd mates, and do not seem to miss the company of other horses.
My purpose in undertaking the Panda Project has been to satisfy my own curiosity about whether using a miniature horse as a guide is a workable proposition, and to provide information to others in the blindness community, as well as in the community at large, on the subject, so that the topic can be debated on the basis of knowledge rather than on the basis of preconceptions and suppositions. We have only begun to gather the necessary information from our experience with Panda. It will take more years and more horses than just Panda and Cuddles to accumulate the data upon which blind people can make truly informed decisions about their mobility options.
The choice of a mobility method will remain one of personal preference based on lifestyle, temperament, living situation, and economics, among other factors. What we wish to contribute is data on one new and intriguing option which may offer blind people a safe and efficient mobility technique and a companion who can remain active and working for 25 years or more. Panda has so far shown that she can do the job, that she enjoys doing it, and that she is ready to take on the challenges of the future.
I would like to close by offering a description of one of Panda's recent training sessions, to give you an idea of how it feels to work with a miniature guide horse.
"On Saturday, February 22nd, since the weather was sunny and relatively mild compared to what we have become accustomed to this winter, I decided to go out for a little walk with Panda as my guide. We were still doing 'country work' in my residential neighborhood, which has no sidewalks, when we encountered our first naturally occurring traffic check. (Up to this point, our traffic work has been carefully monitored and traffic checks have been as controlled or 'set up' as possible.) We were walking along the left edge of the road toward the main street, when a car turned from the main street onto the road we were walking along, and stopped with its motor running at the mouth of a driveway in front of us. The people in the car were apparently talking to someone standing on the driveway. Before the situation had even registered on my consciousness, Panda stopped abruptly and took a couple of steps backward, very deliberately stopping my forward motion along with her own. I asked Panda to find the way forward, and she looked toward the left, but the lawns were still covered by banks of plowed snow, so we couldn't get around the car by that route. Since the street is very narrow, and going around the car to the right would have put us right in the middle of the street and in the path of cars approaching from either direction, Panda rightly judged that that was not a very safe choice either. She turned to the right in front of me, then stopped and pressed against my legs as if to bar my way. I agreed with her that it would not be safe to go around the stopped car as we would have gone around a trash bin or a leaf pile at the curb. Instead I decided to cross the street and walk along the right edge of the road until we got past the car, then cross back to the left edge and proceed to the corner. Panda followed my directions willingly and flawlessly. I was glad that I had chosen to cross the street rather than walk out and around the car, because as we walked along the right shoulder, cars passed us in both directions, and I would have felt distinctly uncomfortable being out in the middle of the street at that point. Panda's response to this incident gives strong evidence, in my opinion, of the ability of miniature guide horses to exercise the same level of intelligent disobedience that we expect of our guide dogs.
"We crossed the main street at the traffic signal, and then walked on the asphalt sidewalk/bike path down a long block, about half a mile, broken only by driveways and very wide parking lot entrances. There are no curbs or ramps marking the transition from bike path to parking lot entrance, only the slightest change in the asphalt surface. My guide dogs frequently failed to stop at these non-existent curbs. Yet Panda stopped at every one, 10 for 10! Is that due to the naturally high trainability of miniature horses, or to the power of clicker training and positive reinforcement? Only once did she stray off course, and that was when I directed her to 'find the curb,' and she took me to a real curb at the end of a real sidewalk which leads to the high school. I love the way she tapped the curb with her little hoof to let me know exactly what she had found. I easily redirected her to the left and back to the bike path.
"On the long straightaways I asked Panda to 'hop up,' and she picked up a delightful, perky trot that allowed us both to stretch our legs and get a little much-needed exercise. I felt the thrill of fluid forward-moving energy without feeling as if I were being pulled off my feet. The reactions of the fellow walkers and joggers we met along the way ranged from delighted surprise at seeing such a small horse to a matter-of-fact comment about the 'seeing eye pony.' But everyone commented on how lovely she is and how well she is doing her guide work. And she never became the slightest bit distracted or alarmed by the people. If I stopped to answer curious questions, Panda waited patiently. If I kept on walking, she did not object or seek attention from the people.
"On our return home, I could tell that Panda was very pleased with our walk, as was I. We are learning to trust one another, and growing in confidence as a working team. And that is a very satisfying and happy outcome for both Panda and myself."
For more information about the Panda Project and Panda's training, visit Alexandra Kurland's web site, www.theclickercenter.com. Alexandra Kurland's book, "Clicker Training for Your Horse," is available from the NLS in Braille or on cassette. Questions for Ann Edie can be sent by e-mail to [email protected].
Captions
Panda and Ann, surrounded by computers, printers and other technology, take a break from work in Ann's office at the high school. (Photos courtesy of Alexandra Kurland.)
Panda guides Ann Edie past a tricky obstacle -- men taking a freight shipment down a set of open basement steps.