City's first guide dogs hit trouble at Metro station: China
THE Metro proved a problem when Shanghai's first two guide dogs for the blind, Fang Ru and Ka Jie, took to the streets with their masters for the first time.
Fang Ru guided her master, Hu Lin, who works at a massage parlor in Jing'an District, to the Metro yesterday. But when they reached the gate of Metro Line 2's Songhong Road, station staff stopped them.
Hu was told the Shanghai Dogs Management Regulation forbids dogs, apart from police dogs, to enter public venues.
However, the revised Law of People's Republic of China on the Protection for Disabled Persons, which took effect on July 1, stipulates that blind people can carry necessary devices or equipment to help them get around. Guide dogs come under the category of auxiliary equipment.
Though the Metro company let them pass finally yesterday in the presence of the media, they said guide dogs would not be allowed through in future unless they received instructions from management.
"The Metro company is acting too rigidly," said Liu Chunquan, of the Guangsheng Lawyer Company.
"The dog–management regulation is directed against pet dogs, preventing them messing up the environment. Guide dogs are not ordinary pets.
"Laws always lag behind reality. People should act flexibly according to different situations," he said.
Another guide dog named Ka Jie took his master to do some shopping and visit a doctor on Thursday. He also aroused great attention wherever he went, with people eager to touch him and even calling out to him.
"Residents can severely endanger the safety of blind people with dogs," said Lai Jie, the dogs' trainer. "They should not distract dogs when they are at work in public."
Traffic lights without warning sounds and cars running red lights also threaten the safety of blind people, Lai said.
The guide dogs are both two years old, and they are expected to work until they are 10 or 12. They were selected from about 20 dogs who took part in a joint project last March by the police dog research institute under the Ministry of Public Security, the Shanghai Disabled Persons' Federation and the Japanese Guide Dog Association. Only Ka Jie and Fang Ru qualified to become guide dogs.
Before coming to the city, three blind people spent 18 days with the dogs for basic training at the institute in Nanjing.
Following more than a year of training, two more Labrador dogs are now going through the last experimental stage, being matched with a blind person.
There are about 158,000 visually impaired people living in Shanghai, and the introduction of guide dogs will greatly improve their lives.
Source: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/
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