Have any of you seen this show? Last night was the second episode. The premise is simple: Blind cop struggling to be a cop. With a bit of suspension of disbelief, its actually a pretty good show.
Last night, though, I got pissed, and any of you who have ever worked with or trained seeing eye dogs will agree with me.
At the beginning of the episode, the cop is walking across the street with his dog. Standard blind people in movies fare. Problem comes with a guy on a bike knocks the cop almost over, makes him let go of the dog's harness, and gets him all turned around.
What does the dog do? Takes off across the street. The cop is standing there, calling the dog's name, turning in circles, all dramatically freaked out and stuff.
Okay.NO! Nonononononononono. No working dog is going to abandon his person like that, ESPECIALLY not in the middle of the street!
Even if by some bizarre chance the dog does leave his person, he is going to come back, immediately, when called. These dogs are highly trained animals, and I even daresay smarter than a lot of people I know. When it comes to crossing the damn street, they are trained even more carefully. It's one of the most dangerous situations a blind person can encounter, and also one of the most common, so working dogs don't leave their programs until they know what to do in all sorts of situations.
Anyway. Sorry to go off like that, it just made me very angry that for the sake of a little on-screen drama, they besmirch the good name of working dogs everywhere.
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