The Skilful Mind of the Guide Dog: Towards a cognitive and holistic model of training

The book was first issued in 1990. Never available commercially, it was restricted to a small and select readership. As it was considered by a number of research workers and practitioners to be a significant contribution to the understanding of canine learning and cognition, Kns was very pleased to be granted permission by the author to publish this second edition of “The Skilful Mind of the Guide Dog”. With the full cooperation and approval of the author, all the figures, diagrams and layout have been significantly improved, and all changes to the text have been made by Johnston himself. It is a book that will be of value to dog owners and professional trainers, education and training staff of guide dog schools, students of animal and human cognition, veterinary staff, and anyone who has a curiosity about how the guide dog does its job. ABOUT THE BOOK Johnston attempts to integrate the principles and procedures derived from the associative learning theories of Pavlov and Skinner with the findings from the discipline of animal cognition into an explanatory framework of skill learning by the guide dog; and additionally to outline a cognitive and holistic model of training. Associative learning principles are central to animal training. Operant procedures are powerful techniques and their use in training help to establish the motor behaviours that are the basis of skilled action by the guide dog. However, for the dog to become a safe and fluent guide for a vision impaired person it will be necessary for it to employ the cognitive processes of selective attention, pattern recognition, categorisation, discrimination, prediction and the mental representation of knowledge and its translation into action. Above all the guide dog needs to be a confident decision maker and problem solver, capable of operating with purposeful intent within a set of rules. If the dog is to guide its vision impaired owner safely in town or city, stopping at kerbs, avoiding pedestrians and street furniture, manoeuvring around ladders and helping its owner cross roads safely, it will need to be much more than a well conditioned and unthinking robot! Skill acquisition by the guide dog would appear to be dependent upon an interplay between stimulus driven [bottom-up] and mentally driven [top-down] processes. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Before joining Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (UK) in 1992 as their Psychology and Training Consultant, Johnston had over 25 years of experience as a college lecturer. The writing of the first edition of this book in 1990 stemmed from his work in developmental and cognitive psychology, education and disability, and his interest, at the time, in the burgeoning discipline of animal cognition. "The Skilful Mind of the Guide Dog" formed the basis of his developmental and educational work with the Association, and foreshadowed the publication of "Harnessing Thought" in 1995. Johnston has been a guide dog owner for 47 years. He trained with his first dog in 1965. He now lives in Berkshire with his wife Jane.