Le rapport des personnes déficientes visuelles au chien guide. Comment l’usage du chien guide pourrait-il se développer en France ?

Abstract

In France, the recourse to guide dogs by visually handicapped people is limited. A questionnaire has been addressed to them to identify sociodemographic and handicap-related variables that might characterize them according to the recourse to the guide dog, and their motivations to choose to get a guide dog, and/or a pet. Among 76 respondents, the non-pet owners are generally visually impaired from birth and have poor vision; the pet owners are generally late visually impaired and blind. Most respondents attribute a double status to the guide dog: as a working dog and as a pet. The reasons to get a guide dog are founded on its functional support for orientation and mobility, as well as for sharing affection and interaction, as the drawbacks of the long cane and the social integration role of the guide dog. Having a guide dog and a pet is linked. For people who did not choose a guide dog, this animal is viewed as a constraint, the persons consider their locomotion aid to be satisfactory. The management of the double status of the guide dog – sometimes established on wrong knowledge – is problematic, and might contribute to limit the recourse to guide dogs. Some knowledge and practices linked to its double status might however favour its adoption.