Poodles With Oodles to Offer

Poodles are known for many things: curly coats, expressive eyes and tres chic coiffures.

But they also possess a keen intellect, an easygoing temperament and retrieving capabilities that experts say make them excellent candidates to be trained as guide dogs for visually impaired adults.

With that in mind, Guide Dogs of America, a Sylmar-based nonprofit organization that trains and provides guide dogs, launched a pilot program Friday to train standard poodles.

While the group has previously trained hundreds of Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and German shepherds since 1948, organization officials said they decided to train standard poodles because they are considered hypoallergenic. The program aims to allow visually disabled people with allergies to enjoy the companionship, increased mobility and greater independence that guide dogs provide.

“We are hoping that by having standard poodles in the program, we can serve the particular blind population that wanted to have a dog in the past, but couldn’t have one due to allergies,” said Debbie Sands, an organization spokeswoman.

On Friday, the organization gave five 8-week-old standard poodles and 15 Labrador retrievers to volunteers who will provide socialization and basic obedience training for the dogs during the next 18 to 20 months.

When fully grown, the standard poodle stands more than 15 inches high at the shoulder and weighs about 60 pounds.

When the dogs are about 2 years old, they will undergo formal guide dog training, learning how to move people safely from one place to another, officials said.

For example, if a visually impaired person commands a guide dog to cross an intersection at a time when the dog perceives it to be dangerous, the dog will “respectfully disobey” until it is safe.

“The dog is basically acting as the eyes for the visually impaired person,” Sands said.

Once the formal training is completed, the organization carefully matches the dogs with owners, officials said. A recipient’s lifestyle, environment, strength, size, walking pace and energy level are all taken into consideration. Recipients also learn how to handle and care for the guide dog.

The cost of breeding, raising and training a dog is about $38,000, organization officials said. The nonprofit group covers the cost through private donations and fund-raising events.