Chap can't help sniffing around the camera, while Ace and Yayoi are eager to play.

Observing Labrador retrievers at the Japan Guide Dog Association's Training Center in Yokohama, one learns a fundamental fact about guide dogs -- even though they're well trained, they are just as inquisitive and fun-loving as ordinary pet dogs.

They can also get into mischief, says the center's general manager, Park Sun Ja, who has seen her canine students stick their noses into garbage bins in search of lickable candy wrappers.

"Guide dogs are not pets," Park says, "but they are still dogs."

Most people see them as some kind of super dog, independently leading their masters to destinations. But, Park points out, it is the handler who actually controls the dog and gives the dog directions.

"What guide dogs do are such things as stopping at the corner and navigating around obstacles. They go forward, turn right and left, following the master's order. But it is the handler who judges whether signals are green or not, who tells the dog which door it should take. It's just like driving a car. You have to turn the wheel and step on the accelerator."

The center, one of eight guide dog training facilities in Japan, raises and trains 15 guide dogs to lend to visually challenged people every year. As of March 2000, 850 guide dogs were working for their masters throughout the country.

In Japan, the visually impaired often encounter more than just physical barriers when they go out with their guide dogs: At stores, restaurants, hotels, apartment buildings and in taxis, they are often refused entrance on the grounds that their dogs could bother other customers.

Although the Japanese government has urged industries to accept people with guide dogs, there are no penalties attached to this decree.

"This shows the low status of dogs in Japan," Park says.

Interestingly, there is another typical reaction to guide dogs that seems to contradict the idea of dogs having low status: Japanese often pity the fate of guide dogs, Park says, since they must change owners after their training and then "work" most of their lives.

Park says that although this might seem cruel for ordinary dogs, the same is not true for guide dogs. The dogs have had the characteristics of working animals bred into them over many generations. They need to work.

However, Park emphasizes, "Whether it is a guide dog or a pet, the dog needs the owner and the owner needs the dog. There is no dog-animal relationship in which the one is sacrificed for the other."