The Well-Being of Guide Dogs and Humans Who Care for Them

Source: Gustavo Fring/Pexels.

Many people rely on assistance dogs for support, and the well-being of all participants in these interactions is essential and given careful attention. To be sure that the dogs' and their humans' physical and emotional well-being receive the attention they require can take time and patience and isn't always easy to achieve. Anthrozoologist Tiamat Warda's recent book, Interspecies Emotional Labour Unspoken Expectations of Professionalism in Guide Dog Work, explores this topic through the work of guide dogs and their instructors. (Here, emotional labor refers to the skill of managing emotions to present oneself with professionalism.) It's estimated that around 20,000 people depend on guide dogs globally, and using practices to support more sustainable interspecies work is a much-needed win-win for all involved.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Interspecies Emotional Labour, and why did you choose this title?

Tiamat Warda: Humans and animals work together in increasingly complex ways. In many cases, animals provide a service for humans—often with a human. Other times, such as with veterinarians, humans provide a service for animals. In both cases, there are expectations around what counts as professional behavior for humans and animals: a guide dog is expected to be calm and confident, while a veterinarian must treat patients with a caring demeanour. The driving force behind this book was curiosity about the expectations that society and workplaces have for working animals, and how they affect the work itself and workers’ well-being. In human workplaces, this is referred to as emotional labour: managing emotions to perform a degree of professionalism that is acceptable. I argue that guide dogs do this too, together with their human co-workers. The title Interspecies Emotional Labour highlights this shared effort across species.

MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?

TW: This book really began in 2012. I opened a guide dog school and spent almost a decade educating guide dogs: some of the stories from that time appear in the book. Later, I completed an MA and PhD in anthrozoology, the study of human-animal interactions and dynamics—focusing on assistance dogs, and my academic area of interest is an emerging discipline called animal organization studies. This book is based on my doctoral research, which drew on my practitioner experience and interviews with guide dog professionals.

MB: Who do you hope to reach?

TW: This is an academic book, but I wrote it to be accessible for practitioners and members of the public interested in working animals (and the humans who work with them). Readers do not need to know anything about guide dogs or emotional labour; both are introduced in an approachable manner, before presenting discussions that weave practitioner experience with academic theory.

Source: Routledge/with permission.

MB: What are some of the topics you consider, and what are some of your major messages?

TW: The main topic is the concept of interspecies emotional labour, which refers to animals and humans performing professional demeanours when working with and for each other. This truly is a performance: there are social and organisational expectations of how workers should act, regardless of whether these reflect how they genuinely feel. We know from research with human workers that regularly suppressing or faking expressions of emotion—for example, “putting on” a smile but suppressing any sign that you are actually frustrated—can lead to burnout, compassion fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and the list goes on. However, many workplaces also have animals working in them. We need to know how the emotional labour they are asked to perform can affect their well-being and working success, especially when the professionalism expected in their job does not align well with factors such as their personality.

This book argues that if an individual dog is well-suited for their work, their ability to perform emotional labour successfully throughout their working life is more sustainable. Alternatively, if this is not the case, it can have detrimental effects on their well-being; therefore, it cannot be considered a sustainable labour process that we can ethically ask them to perform. The chapters trace concrete factors that make interspecies emotional labour more or less sustainable, including the selection of dogs and humans, how they are prepared and educated for this line of work. If we want good-quality working lives for both dogs and humans, which we should, organisations must specify explicit criteria for the professionalism expected as part of a job. What abilities and personalities align best with these criteria, and how can workers (dog and human) be taught and supported to fulfill these expectations more sustainably?

MB: How does your work differ from others concerned with some of the same general topics?

TW: Apart from a few earlier articles of mine, no work has discussed the emotional labour performed in guide dog work by humans and dogs. However, more literature on interspecies emotional labour is being published. A couple of examples include work on horses performing emotional labour in tourism, and humans performing emotional labour in veterinary clinics. This book questions what elements of the work that guide dogs and the humans who educate them can affect the emotional labour that they perform. I address these points by examining organisational processes involved in the development of both guide dogs and the professionals who educate them, and ways organisations can ultimately make the emotional labour they perform more sustainable.

MB: Are you hopeful that, as people learn more about this topic, they will treat guide dogs and other assistance dogs with more dignity, compassion, and respect?

TW: Definitely. This book even provides actionable guidelines: organisations formulating criteria for the professional demeanours they expect of workers, selecting and educating dogs and humans through the lens of the emotional labour they will be expected to perform, and supporting them throughout their working life. If organisations and practitioners take that seriously, then yes, learning about this topic can directly translate into more dignified, compassionate treatment of assistance dogs and their human co-workers, where their work is respected and suited to their abilities and interests.