Love in the Lead: Working
Dogs
“Gentlemen, I give you the German Shepherd…” writes Dorothy
Eustis in the November 5, 1929 Saturday
Evening Post in an article that has changed the lives of tens of thousands
of blind and visually impaired persons for nearly eighty-five years. In that
world-changing article, Ms. Eustis didn’t simply give us the German Shepherd;
she gave us The Seeing Eye Dog.
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| Laurie Alice and yellow Labrador retriever, Bobbin, before their graduation from Guide Dogs outside Portland, Oregon in 2003 |
Dogs have been used as working animals for thousands of
years. Ancient peoples used dogs to pull sledges or turn spits for roasting
meat. Sailors used dogs to jump into the water and retrieve objects fallen
overboard or help pull in nets. And, of course, dogs have been used to guard
and protect and even fight in wars. But possibly the noblest of callings for a
dog is the service dog to persons with disabilities.
Ms. Eustis witnessed dogs being trained for aid to blinded
German soldiers after World War I, and began to develop the idea of this
benefiting blind persons in general. She worked with training in Switzerland
until, fully convinced, she wrote her article and introduced the United States
to the concept of dogs that could be trained to guide persons who are blind or
visually impaired.
After that article in the Saturday Evening Post, a young blind man named Morris Frank
contacted Ms. Eustis and asked for her to train him with a dog. She took him to
Switzerland, where he received “Kiss” a German shepherd female. Appalled at the
name, Frank renamed her “Buddy”. Buddy and Frank trained together, returned to
the US, and stayed together as a working team until Buddy could no longer work.
| Morris Frank and Buddy |
During that time, The Seeing Eye training got underway. At
first, the trainers went to different parts of the country to train the dogs
and the people. Then they opened a campus. That campus moved a couple of times
before it settled in its current location outside historic Morristown, New
Jersey.
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| Nick’s official ID picture after finishing training from The Seeing Eye in 2008 outside Morristown, NJ |
Meanwhile, other training schools opened up. Leader Dogs for
the Blind http://www.leaderdog.org in
Rochester, Michigan, in 1938, (sponsored by the Lions Clubs), Guide Dogs of San
Rafael http://www.guidedogs.com in San
Rafael, California, in 1942, and Guiding Eyes for the Blind http://www.guidingeyes.org in 1954.
Others schools exist and come and go, and these are the four most prominent
schools.
Through the work of the schools, their supporters, and
alumni, laws have been enacted to give persons with service dogs access to
public accommodations such as restaurants, stores, and transportation. Even
more so, it allows blind persons to travel more safely and with greater
confidence across farmland and through city streets.
Puppies are born at or near the training facilities, then
raised by families to socialize them until they are around twelve, to eighteen
months or older. Then they arrive at the school where they live in kennels and
work with trainers to learn their work. This is like doggy university. When
they graduate from that training, they are then paired with a blind person
needing the dog for mobility purposes. The blind person spends two to four
weeks training with the dog before going home, where the true training and
bonding takes place.
Now dogs are used to help persons with all sorts of
disabilities from autistic children, to persons in wheelchairs, to those with
hearing impairments and deafness.
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| Laurie Alice and Nick taking a walk on the beach at South Padre Island, Texas |
(Note: These dogs are free to the users, and training costs
as much as $60,000.00 per dog.)
For further depth into the fascinating story of how this
highly scientific and love-based work has developed, find a copy of Love Leads the Way, or find a copy of
the movie Love in the Lead. Warning
if you do this research, however, make sure you have lots of tissues on hand.
