The Gift of Independence

22 The Gift of Independence Thirteen-year-old Susan Jones often noticed blind people walking with guide dogs in her busy city. It always amazed her to see the dogs work. How did they do it? How did they know the traffic lights? How did they concentrate in busy city traffic? These were questions that always puzzled the young girl. She finally found the answers when she heard about the Seeing Eye program, which trains working dogs to become guides for blind people. Last year, Susan and her family became Seeing Eye volunteers. They adopted a Seeing Eye dog when it was only a few weeks old. “ We took a training course with the Seeing Eye program, " explained Susan. “ We learned how to raise the puppy. We treated it like a family member. We took it with us wherever we went. We made sure that it spent a lot of time getting used to the city, the traffic, the noise, and the people. "

It takes at least two years to teach Seeing Eye dogs all the skills they need to guide a blind person around a busy city. When a dog is about one year old, the real training begins. But there is a lot of work to do before that. That's where volunteers like Susan and her family come in. During the first months of life, Seeing Eye dogs do not live with professional trainers. Nor do they live with the blind person they will eventually serve. During those first critical months, the puppies live with a regular family. When the dog is about a year old, it leaves its adopted home. A professional trainer and a blind person teach the dog the skills it needs to become an expert guide. After a long and difficult training period, the dog and the blind person finally team up. For the rest of its life, the Secing Eye dog acts as its master's eyes. Susan said she got really attached to their first little puppy. “ It was hard when the time came to say goodbye, " she said. “ But we knew that the little dog was going to help someone who really needed it. I feel good about having had a small part in giving the gift of independence to someone who cannot see. "