CENTRAL NEW YORK – Central New York’s chapter of Guiding Eyes for the Blind is looking for volunteers to raise puppies with the goal of having them be guide dogs for people with vision loss.
The Central New York region of the organization, which includes Onondaga, Madison, Cayuga and Oswego counties, holds classes Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 10 a.m. on alternate weeks.
The organization asks that raisers be dog lovers with patience, a willingness to take the dogs with them to the different places they go, and enough time in their schedules to give the pups proper attention.
The raisers also have to be OK with letting the dogs go between the 15-month and year-and-a-half mark to allow the organization to conduct the second, more intensive part of the training before the dogs are connected with more permanent owners. Often enough, however, the puppy raisers are given the chance to keep the dogs for themselves once their service is over.
Mary Oonk, the regional co-coordinator for the Central New York region, said Guiding Eyes works with Labrador Retrievers, most of them black or yellow, and German Shepherds.
Currently, the 15 dogs in the region’s puppy-raising program range in age from about five months to one and a half, and none of the dogs share a name with others that are in the program at the same time, with some being named in honor of people who have passed away.
Guiding Eyes has regions stretching from Maine down to Ohio and North Carolina, with about 175 puppies in training in its Northeast system at any given time.
Oonk said the organization determines that a pooch is prepared to go off into the further training once they make it through the foundational puppy program, which teaches good house manners, basic obedience and socialization.
The dogs then go back to the Guiding Eyes headquarters in Yorktown Heights and work with a professional trainer that assesses them over four stages of progressively increasing difficulty and has them reach certain milestones until the trainer feels comfortable and confident that the dogs can work in any type of setting with all different types of people.
For the puppy program, the regional coordinators spread out the weekly classes to various locations in the area, a strategy that gives the dogs an opportunity to experience different environments while accommodating the raisers, who are coming from DeWitt, the city of Syracuse, Auburn, Clay, Canastota and elsewhere.
They’ve met at such places as the Camillus Erie Canal Park, the swan pond in Manlius, the Mills Rose Garden in Thornden Park, and the village of Baldwinsville’s busy four corners so the dogs could practice going over crosswalks and waiting for traffic lights to change. The group has also gone on path walks and platform boat rides with the pups.
Because the dogs will have to assist people who are completely blind potentially, Oonk said giving the dogs exposure to different locales and scenes in nature is also a way to teach them not to dart off at a moment’s notice after the variety of distractions that can come about—everything from food on the ground to loud noises to a squirrel running up a tree.
During classes monitoring their progress, the dogs are instructed to refocus and check back in with their raisers if they let their eyes wander to other class activity or begin barking at the other leashed dogs. Nonetheless, the dogs are also trained to remain aware of their surroundings, just without giving in to them, and their calm behavior is rewarded with treats.
“As working guide dogs there are gonna be distractions going on all around them, but what the dog needs to learn, and what we start teaching as little as these four-month-old puppies, right up until the time they go back into their formal training, is even though there’re distractions around you, we still want you to be able to connect with your handler,” Oonk said. “So that’s gonna be really important in their guide dog work if something distracting happens but they can right away refocus on the job at hand and the task of keeping their person safe.”
Dogs might be considered unfit for guide dog work if they have too much sensitivity to sound or touch or if they are not responding well enough to the discipline of the puppy-raising program, in which case they would return to Guiding Eyes to be connected with somebody through adoption.
Adding that there’s a “real camaraderie” and supportiveness among those involved with Guiding Eyes for the Blind, Oonk said that knowing they’re giving someone who needs the assistance of a guide dog that greater freedom to be out and about is “very rewarding and fulfilling” for puppy raisers, staff members and other volunteers for Guiding Eyes.
“Where before they may’ve had a certain amount of limitations or a certain amount of hesitancy in going out and about, you can really give them that sense of freedom and sense of independence and really have an impact on someone else’s life,” she said.
Gianna Frank, a sophomore Syracuse University neuroscience and biology major, is raising her guide dog prospect Raquel on campus, and she said she has even brought her yellow lab companion to class on occasion. One time, while hidden beneath the seats, Raquel even let out a bark in the middle of one of Frank’s organic chemistry classes that was taking place in a 200-person lecture hall.
Larry McConnelee, whose current dog’s name is Orleans, has been raising puppies for guide dog work with his wife, Ruth, for 34 years now. The Camillus couple has raised 28 dogs over time for that purpose, and they make sure to exchange Christmas cards and gifts and stay in touch throughout the year with those who own the dogs after them, some of whom live out of state or on the other side of the country.
For more information visit guidingeyes.org.