GC&SU’s Alby trains man’s best friend

If you see a woman walking her dog around campus, it does not mean that pets are allowed at Georgia College & State University – it’s just Dr. Cynthia Alby and her guide dog-in-training, Fiesta.

Dr. Alby, associate professor and chair of the department of foundations and secondary education, came to GC&SU from Atlanta in the Fall of 2001. She began training guide dogs several years ago.

“I have a friend in Atlanta who works with the blind and she said they really need people who will train guide dogs,” Alby said. “She knew I love dogs because I had four at the time. She started giving me the pamphlets and showing me the website, and soon I got to thinking, yeah, I can take a dog to work – that would be great. And so it only took about a month for me to think about it and decided to give it a try.”

One might think that by bringing a dog on campus Alby would encounter opposition from the GC&SU administration, but that is not the case.

“At the time I applied for the dog, I had also been offered this position,” she said. “So in the interviews I said I’m going to have a dog and is that okay with you? And far from being accepting, the school has been very enthusiastic about it.”

Her first guide dog, a male Yellow Lab named Cicci, is now serving a disabled person. She is currently training her second guide dog, a female Yellow Lab named Fiesta who has been with her less than six months. She has taken the dogs with her everywhere she goes.

“The dogs are allowed to go anywhere a guide dog goes,” Alby said. “I take the dog to work, to restaurants, to the movies, to conferences, everywhere. One afternoon my secretary and I took Cicci and the three of us went to see a movie at the movie theater here in Milledgeville. In fact, I had previously taken him to a play in Atlanta, which he enjoyed thoroughly. He really did. He watched the whole thing and was fascinated by it.”

Dr. Alby’s secretary, Ruby Griffin, said she was impressed with Cicci’s behavior at the movies.

“The dog was very well behaved and it was like having another person with us,” Griffin said. “If you ask me he was watching the movie with us.”

Dr. Alby said training the dogs does not require previous instruction for the trainer.

“When they drop off the dog, they also drop off a huge manual that you read through that kind of helps you along,” she said. “Then we meet every two weeks with a group of other guide dog puppies and kind of train together. We have professionals who come and check on our progress and give us advice. It’s not very complicated, really. There is some basic obedience training and we go to classes for that, but mostly it’s just taking the dog wherever I go.”

The long process of training the dogs begins at an early age and lasts about a year and a half.

“I get the dogs at eight weeks and keep them for anywhere between a year and three months and a year and six months depending on if they have to get a whole class of dogs together at the same time,” Alby said. “They use predominately Retrievers’ Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers. They are experimenting with a few other breeds, but the vast majority are the Labs.”

Dr. Alby said she is happy to help provide a service to those in need, but having to let the dogs go after investing months of time and care is difficult.

“It is really tough,” she said. “These dogs, you can tell (service) is really bred into them. They want to serve, like with my last dog. If you tried to leave him at home he was visibly upset by that. He wanted to come along, wanted to come to this office and lay on the floor all day. That was his idea of a good time. Anywhere I am, he wants to be there, too. I mostly feel proud. Whenever I see someone in public with any kind of service dog, I just swell with pride and think that’s what my dog is doing. He’s making someone’s life totally different than it would have been without him so maybe it is like sending kids to college. The parents feel really sorry that they are not around the house every day like they used to be, but actually it is kind of a happy time.”

The average length of service for a guide dog is relatively short.

“It is not as long as you would think because they are about two years old before they are fully trained,” she said. “Then they work from age two until sometimes only about age ten, because dogs, like humans, get arthritis and are prone to vision and hearing problems. That’s fine if it’s your pet, but if this dog is keeping you from getting hit by a car, you really want it to be in perfect physical health. So really, it’s only about eight years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Not all that long.”

The dog is a welcome addition at the School of Education and is not considered a nuisance.

“Having Fiesta around is really not that distracting,” Griffin said. “She is a part of the faculty as far as I am concerned. She is just supposed to be here. The dogs seem to be of very high intelligence. It is really an honor to have the seeing eye dogs in training as a part of our faculty.”

Dr. Alby believes the dogs make a positive impact not only for those in need, but also at GC&SU.

“Whenever we have new students coming in for orientation I always bring the dog and people are really excited and remember me because I have the dog,” she said. “I think that having the dog has made me more visible and it also says something about the School of Education, that we’re interested in inclusion and doing what we can to help people who have special needs. I think that’s kind of the message it sends and that is a good message for the School of Education to be sending.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 17 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry