Don’t say the words “do your business” to Lana, a 7-month-old golden retriever.

She may just relieve herself on the spot.

As a guide dog-in-training, Lana can perform several tasks, including sitting, standing and peeing on command. Her trainer, Abby Christensen, who turns 18 on Saturday, said the latter was tricky and sort of hit-or-miss.

“You take them out when you think they have to go, and you tell them the command basically as they’re going to the bathroom,” the recent homeschool graduate said.

Christensen and her mother, Paula Harper-Christensen, have raised three dogs before Lana. Two of them graduated from the training and are currently paired with blind partners, while their first dog, Hermione, works as a therapy dog for a pediatric social worker. About half of all dogs trained make it through to become working guide dogs.

The two have trained four dogs, including Lana, as part of the nonprofit organization Guide Dogs for the Blind, based out of California and Oregon. They started when Christensen was 11, with the hopes of combining a love of dogs with a love of community service.

“It’s one of those things in life that you do thinking you’re going to give, and then you get so much more back,” Harper-Christensen said.

One of the most special moments in the process is graduation. When the puppies are between 14 and 17 months old, they head off to “puppy college,” where all dogs learn exactly how to lead a blind person by looking out for obstacles and avoiding potential danger. If the education is successful, the dog will be paired up with a blind partner and meet their new owner at the graduation ceremony.

“During the actual graduation, the blind partner comes up from one side of the stage and then the trainer with the dog comes up from the other end,” Christensen said. “You actually get to hand the leash over to the blind partner.”

Although by the end of their training, the dogs are valued at $40,000 to $50,000, the blind person gets to take them home at zero cost.

Kristin Pitt, a Sammamish resident and Samantha Smith Elementary employee who trains for a group called Guide Dogs of America, said that program doesn’t charge for its services either. They even pay the blind partner’s airfare if they need to fly in to their base in California. Pitt, who is instructing her fifth dog after eight years, even got to travel to the organization’s main campus and experience the training that a blind person goes through before they receive a dog.

“You give the commands, but then you have to wait and see if the dog does it, because if the dog doesn’t do it, there’s a reason,” she said. “The person has to key off what the dog does.”

Pitt walked blindfolded with dogs for nine days, but a blind person, when matching with a dog, would stay for 30.

She said that the blind person already knows where they’re going; the guide dog serves as an extra precaution against possible roadblocks.

“Their job really is to get someone to where they’re going safely,” she said.

The dogs will stop at curbs or lead people around potential obstacles. Because they act so fluidly and spend so much time together, Guide Dogs of America takes great pains in pairing dogs with new owners.

“They’re really looking at dog personalities and they’re really looking at the way people work,” Pitt said.

People will actually go out and observe blind partners’ lifestyles and routines in order to figure out which guide dog would best fit in.

But it’s that final relationship that makes the entire process worth it.

“When you’re giving the dog away to that blind person you realize that you’ve given them sight, companionship and independence, which is what we as humans all desire,” Harper-Christensen said. “I think as humans we all desire to be self-sufficient.”