I learned this today. Labradors are used as guide dogs because of their temperament, but also because of their size.
Guide dogs have been used for centuries. There is a painting of a blind man being led by a dog on the wall of a Roman house that was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The first school for service animal training was opened in Germany during World War 1 because there were a lot of blinded soldiers coming back from the front. There was not much interest outside of Germany until about ten years later when an American dog breeder living in Switzerland wrote an account of the training school and the service. In 1929, Morris Frank, founder of the first seeing-eye dog school in America, took his dog Buddy on a tour of America to show people that service animals needed to be allowed on public transport and in other public areas.
The first guide dogs were German Shepherds. They are highly intelligent and loyal, but it can be hard for them to shift loyalty from the person that trained them to the blind person they will live with. They also have a lot of health problems. It takes a lot of skill on the part of the blind person to use a German Shepherd. In the 1930s, most seeing-eye dog schools shifted to Labradors.
The Labrador breed has been around since about 1830. St. Johns Water Dogs that were bred by European settlers in Newfoundland were brought to Britain. They were bred with British hunting dogs and the result was the Labrador Retriever.
Labradors are friendly, not aggressive, easy-going, and loyal. They can concentrate well and don’t get stressed. They can adapt well. They are very easy to train because they are natural people-pleasers. They are one of the ten most intelligent breeds of dog, and they can learn up to 250 words. They can solve problems. They can understand when to follow an order and when not to. If “let’s go”, means you will walk in front of traffic, they will disobey the order.
And this is where their size is important. They are about 57cm tall, which is a perfect height for someone to walk behind them holding a lead, and they weigh about 35kg. That is enough weight to stop someone from walking forward. If the person they are guiding was going to walk into traffic, the Labrador can easily use its body to block them, without tripping them up.
So, the first guide dogs trained in a guide dog school were German Shepherds. Soon, people started using Labradors because they have a wonderful temperament, are intelligent and easy to train, and have enough weight to use their body to stop their owner from walking where they shouldn’t. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labrador_Retriever
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_dog
https://www.trendingbreeds.com/why-are-labradors-guide-dogs/
https://wagwalking.com/behavior/why-are-labrador-retrievers-good-guide-dogs
