Dogs have always been a person’s best friend, but to the people who seek out the services from The Seeing Eye® organization, these four-legged heroes are more than just friends— they are life changers.
The Seeing Eye® organization has been helping those individuals who are vision impaired since 1929 when the use of canine companions made its way overseas from Europe to the states. Since that time, it has been the company’s mission to “enhance the independence, dignity, and self-confidence of blind people through the use of Seeing Eye® dogs.”
One of the ways they do this is through a special program where volunteers known as “puppy raisers” who raise and train these extraordinary animals whose mission it is to change the life of a person in need.
Last month on March 23 at their main campus in Morristown, N.J., about 70 of these puppy raising volunteers met where they received additional training and updates about how things are progressing within the organization.
Here in Franklin County, two community members work with Seeing Eye®, Penny Rowe, who volunteers as a Puppy Club Leader and Trish Wagaman, who is currently a puppy raiser and is raising a 4-month-old puppy named Roddy.
In its 95 years of existence, Seeing Eye® has provided companions for more than 18,000 people, and that number is growing daily, but how did it all get started?
According to the organization’s website, founder, Morris Frank read an article that changed his life. He read about dogs being trained to assist blind veterans from World War I. Frank was inspired by this and sought out the woman who wrote the article, Dorothy Harrison Eustis.
Eustis was living in Switzerland and was breeding and training German shepherd dogs for use by the police and military. Frank traveled to Switzerland where he learned all he could from Eustis before returning home to New York City with his own seeing eye dog, Buddy. Frank was not just inspired by the concept of the training but also reaped the benefits as he was also vision impaired.
Frank and Buddy would move about on the streets of the country’s busiest metropolis showcasing the amazing talents of the dog and what it could mean for all those in need of assistance. From there, Frank and Eustis would form Seeing Eye® and create a school where people could learn to train dogs and expand their mission.
For more information on the Seeing Eye® organization or for info on how to become a volunteer, readers may visit the group’s website: https://seeingeye.org/
