A young woman at our New Jersey book signing Sunday said she’d raised a puppy for the Seeing Eye in…get this…her dorm room! Any of you blog readers out there who are scrambling to find just the right college to attend, may I suggest Rowan University or Rutgers in New Jersey, or University of Delaware? All three host programs for students who’d like to raise a Seeing Eye puppy on campus. Here from the Rutgers University Seeing Eye Puppy Raising Club web site:
On campus we have fifteen designated apartments where the puppies are allowed in with either the raiser or the sitter. Puppies are allowed to attend classes with permission from the professor and can ride on the University buses.
Following the puppy-raising portion of our puppies’ lives they return to The Seeing Eye, Inc. campus in Morristown, New Jersey for formal training. Upon arriving they spend the first month or two in one of the training kennels adjusting to kennel life and being evaluated medically. The Seeing Eye also evaluates dogs to incorporate into the breeding program at this time. Dogs that are not chosen for breeding are neutered or spayed and have various tests to determine whether the dog is healthy and physically fit enough to become a Seeing Eye Dog.
Puppy raisers give the dogs affection, teach them basic obedience, and expose them to social situations they might encounter as Seeing Eye dogs. Assuming, that is, they make it through to graduation — it’s estimated that only 50% of the dogs born at the Seeing Eye end up being placed with a person who is blind.
Another woman we met at our booksigning fit that statistic perfectly. Her family had raised two puppies for the Seeing Eye, but only one of them was a working Seeing Eye dog now. “Bedell is working with a blind man in Georgia,” she said. “Petey, the other one, lives with us at home.”
Standards are high for puppies, and the Seeing Eye is strict about which dogs make it through training. Fitzi, the puppy who was raised in a dorm room, was a very docile dog, easy to train as a puppy. In harness, however, Fitzi felt the immense responsibility of guiding his instructor across busy streets. He was withdrawn from training after only a month due to his fear of traffic. And Petey? “He refused to relieve himself on concrete,” his puppy raiser explained. “Seeing Eye dogs have to go on command, and Petey would only go on grass!” The Seeing Eye is careful not to call these dogs “rejects” or failures” – some of them go on to other working dog organizations, some go back to their puppy raisers, some are adopted by other families. All of them move on to make someone, somewhere, very happy.
Signing a book for one of my Fairview, NJ, fans.
It was fun visiting with people who lived so close to the Seeing Eye. The kids Hanni and I met on our school and library visits on Monday and Tuesday had all seen working Seeing Eye dogs before. Some of them even mentioned the statue of Buddy, the first ever Seeing Eye dog, in the town square in Morristown. During my talk at North Arlington Library on Monday I mentioned the puppy raisers I’d met the weekend before at Mendham Books. Sure enough, when it came to the Q&A, one woman in the audience asked how she could sign up to become a puppy raiser. I beamed.
Hanni and I had a great time in New Jersey and found the people there fun, smart and caring – even though they talk funny. I mean, c’mon. Who calls an Italian sub a “sangwich”?! We hugged our very gracious host and chauffeur (librarian Stephanie Balucci) goodbye at Newark on tuesday. Upon landing safe & sound in Chicago that evening, Hanni and I were reminded how important it is that a Seeing Eye dog be able to “empty” on concrete: there’s no grass at O’Hare!
Wow. I always thought Hanni was special because she guided you around so well. Now I realize she’s special simply to have passed through all the training!
Yeah, Hanni sure *is* special. In many, many ways. Hearing the puppy raisers tell their stories reminded me how much it takes just to qualify to train as a Seeing Eye dog. And then the dogs who qualify have to make it through the training, too.
HI, Beth,
One of my favorite, but rare experiences is to give friends, family and people I meet, a behind the scenes glimpse into what really happens at The Seeing Eye.
The puppy raisers are amazing people! They epitomize the selflessness of giving without expectation of receiving in return.
Through a series of unusual events, I was fortunate to meet, and become friends with, the family that raised my forth dog. They are a generational puppy raising family, and together have raised approximately 35 puppies for The Seeing Eye.
It turns out that they have my current dog’s grandfather and a couple of her cousins. Grampa Dakota was a breeder, one of her cousins had problems with her legs, and the other was part of the “Puppy glut,” which Seeing Eye experienced recently.
The breeding program has become so successful that they had too many healthy puppies, and not enough students to use them, so the raisers were offered the chance to keep the pups they raised, or the pups could be offered to other guide dog schools, or they could become “Career change,” dogs. The most recent annual report of the school tells this interesting story beautifully.
I think the percentage of pups that don’t make it into the program varies from time to time. Genetics is a fluid and sometimes imprecise science. When I was there six years ago, the rate of pups that didn’t make it had decreased from 50 percent to 20 to 30 percent thanks to generations of careful breeding. They do introduce new dogs into the breeding collony periodically, and this can upset the genetic apple cart, so to speak.
The work the dogs are asked to do hasn’t gotten easier. In fact, it has increased in difficulty, as traffic becomes more challenging, and cities become busier.
In The Seeing Eye’s case, their success at matching dog and person has increased over the past three years, partially due to the breeding program.
Our dogs may look like Labs and Shepherds on the outside, but they are a breed within a breed. A great article in The Bark Magazine describes what goes into the making of a guide dog: http://www.thebark.com/content/making-guide-dog
I wish everyone could tour the school and see what you and I see.
Lolly, — you are so generous to share all you’ve learned from your many years of experience with the Seeing Eye – thank you so much for continuing to read (and comment to!) my blog posts, my blog readers and I learn so much from you! Note to blog readers: to learn more about Lolly, check out her web site (called GuideBrooke Productions) — the address is http://www.guidebrookproductions.com/
Stu – It’s funny you say that. I have an English Lab so I always get questioned about what breed he is because he has a huge head and looks like a Rottweiller.
When I tell people he is an English Lab, more than once I’ve been asked if he barks with an accent.
Stu,
Unfortunately (or, maybe in the case of those NJ dogs, fortunately?!) Seeing Eye dogs are trained not to bark, so I guess we’ll never know if those puppies
trained in the NJ dorm rooms would sound like Joyseyans.
And my guess is with Jen living in Northern Ireland, an English accent wouldn’t be too popular?!
Hate to think what a puppy might say if it were trained in *my* dorm room back in the day, thogh…!
Beth,
I’ve read Northern Ireland Jen’s blog a couple times, but that’s not me.
I’m Southern California Jenn.
Whoops! Sorry for the mistake, Southern California Jen! If only our talking computers mimicked the accents of the people who leave comments, I would have known right away. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll pay better attention next time. And thanks for reading – and commenting to – my blog, too.
Accent of the commenters talking computers!! Now that’s something cool to look forward to, eh? It’ll happen someday.
No worries, there are a lot of us Jenn’s in the world. I can’t imagine that you can keep track of all of us.
Hey Beth
Its “northern Ireland Jen” this time! Technically I live in the republic but close to the North, but I won’t confuse you anymore!
Only around 20% of dogs don’t make guide dog training in Cork. they train assistance dogs for children with autism there as well, so most dogs bred in Cork find a career.
I took OJ to meet his puppy raisers last year, and it was an amazing experience for all of us.
Greeting from some who has a vision loss, and helped to plot a program about guide dogs for
The Hadley School for the Blind as for voice http://www.nvda-project.org/ might be of use ‘shrug shoulder”
Ginnystar, this is interesting, but I confess, I’m a little reluctant to click on the link you sent, I am a bit paranoid about getting viruses. Can you comment again with a link to the Hadley School so I can get information on your program that way? Thanks.
_____
t in one of those tactile maps so I can figure out where all you Jens live! As for that 20%, I’d heard the unemployment rate in Ireland was lower than here in the US, but didn’t realize it applied to dogs, too!
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