Your tasks as an apprentice may vary depending on the school where you have been hired. In some programs, apprentices spend the entire first year working with the dogs themselves. You may teach and reinforce basic obedience, teach basic guiding concepts or walk dogs trained by another instructor for evaluation. In other programs, you will take a dog from the time it enters the school for training as a guide and work with it and other dogs through the student selection, matching and training process. Each time you go through such a cycle, you are given more and more responsibility for the training of both dog and student.
Apprentices work very hard.
Be prepared for the initiation that comes with any type of physical job. No matter how much you know about training dogs when you enter your apprenticeship, consider yourself a rank amateur. Though many training experiences can prepare you for teaching dogs and blind people to work together, this is a unique field and anyone involved learns best by observing and keeping an open mind. Getting Past the Application Service dog training programs are non-profit businesses, existing on donations and grants from the general public and foundations. This means two things that you should seriously consider when thinking about becoming a trainer.