This study aims to discuss effective method in order to improve the status and condition of service dogs. As the conclusions, this thesis has clarified the legislative position of service dogs, and considered several issues from both institutional and philosophical standpoint.

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Although guide dogs make a remarkable contribution to the quality of life of the blind people, many countries suffer from an acute shortage of guide dogs such that not all those who need them are able to be supplied. One of the important challenges from the point of view of animal and veterinary science as well as social welfare is to establish a stable and effective breeding and reproduction system for guide dogs for the blind. Although the development and extension of assisted reproductive techniques such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization has been remarkable, in canines, it is not a successful as other mammalian spices such as mice, pigs, cows and humans. In this review, recent advances of cryopreservation of sperm, embryo and ovary, analysis of personality related genes and bio-bank in guide dogs for the blind are described.

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Guide dog puppies are brought up in the families of puppy walkers (PWs) during approximately the first year of their life. We investigated whether there were differences in the undesirable behaviors during puppyhood between the puppies brought up by novel and experienced PWs. Purpose of this investigation is to give every PW proper information and education about puppy behavior and training. A total of 178 PW families (experienced PWs;76, novel PWs;102), were recruited from the Japan Guide Dog Association. They completed a questionnaire when their puppy was 3 months old. That questionnaire had 5 close-ended question (house-breaking, jumping up, barking, pica (non-food item stealing) and pulling on a leash) and open-ended question about other undesirable behaviors. The number of problems were 3 for experienced PWs and 4.2 for novel PWs on average (p < 0.01). "House breaking", "jumping up", "destructiveness" and "play biting toward people" had a significantly higher occurrence ratio in novel PWs (p < 0.01). It was suggested that previous experiences were helpful in these problems. And it was thought that they were able to apply their previous experiences to other dogs in these problems. "Barking", "pica" and "pulling on a leash" showed little difference in the occurrence ratio. It was thought that education and training for the individual was necessary concerning these issues.

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We observed mucous membranes of the tongue, gingiva, cheek and hard palate to assess cytological findings in the oral cavities of 10 guide dogs for the blind (6males and 4 females) aged 1.5-2 years old during the training period. The cells on each surface were collected using Cytobrush Plus (Cooper Surgical Inc.,CT,USA). The cells were smeared onto a slide glass and stained by Papanicolaou's staining method. As a result, angular squamous epithelial cells with round nuclear exfoliated from the superficial and intermediate layers of the oral mucous membranes were noted. The keratinized squamous epithelial cells whose cytoplasm was stained with eosin and orange G were predominant in the mucous membranes of the tongue, hard palate and gingiva. On the other hand, many non-keratinized squamous epithelial cells whose cytoplasm was stained with right green were observed in the mucous membrane of the cheek. Neutrophils and bacterial colonies were observed in various ratios at each site, but Candida was not noted.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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