Page 152 - Aussie Magazine - 2024 Issue 3
P. 152
Informative
ASSISTANCE DOG -
AUSSIE AS AN
Indispensable
Helper
Text written by: Zdenka Koldova, LIFE BOND kennel
Photographs provided by: M. Tobolova & R. Cervenka & S. Kristianova & E. Jedelsky
HISTORY Chinese scroll paintings from
the Middle Ages depict similar
Prehistoric humans began scenes.
taming wolves at least 15,000
years ago, transforming In the 1750s, the earliest
dangerous pack predators systematic instruction of
into loyal companions and guide dogs, as helpers of the
creating specialized dog
breeds for different tasks. (In visually impaired are known,
another version of this story, took place in a Paris hospital
wolves engineered their own for the blind. Several decades
domestication after tasting later, a blind Austrian man
the bounty of campsite living.) named Josef Reisinger trained
But when exactly man’s best a spitz and later a poodle
Assistance dogs friend became an aide to so well that others thought
are highly trained people with disabilities and he was faking his disability.
Another Austrian, Johann
other challenges remains a
to support mystery. Wilhelm Klein, founder of the
disabled people Institute for the Training of
and people The earliest evidence of such the Blind in Vienna, published
one of the first manuals for
partnerships—a fresco in
with medical which a blind man is led by coaching guide dogs in 1819.
conditions in a his dog, discovered amid the He recommended poodles
variety of ways. ruins of the ancient Roman and shepherds as the breeds
most suited to the task and
city Herculaneum—dates
back to the first century A.D. advocated the use of a special
European wood carvings and harness paired with a pole.
152 | A Worldwide Magazine for the Aussie • Issue 3/2024
