SPEAK!: Border collie Sky operates one of the sensors on a vest being developed to help guide dogs communicate with their owners.COURTESY OF MELODY MOORE JACKSON, MELODY@CC.GATECH.EDU
One day in March 2012, Georgia Tech graduate student Vincent Martin left class with his seeing-eye guide dog, a black lab named Karson. They headed along the sidewalk toward the street corner, where Martin could hear a bus stopping to unload its passengers. Still about 30 feet away, Karson suddenly stopped. “Normally when he’s doing something like this, he’s distracted,” Martin says. So he encouraged Karson to continue on. Once again, the dog refused. So Martin pulled out his collapsible cane and felt around for an obstruction. Feeling nothing, he once again urged the dog to move forward, and together, both Martin and Karson stepped directly into wet cement.
“He did his job, and I didn’t do mine,” says Martin, who then had to head ...
