There is a canine being trained to be a hero every day.
Judy Franz and Carla Spawn-van Berkum are volunteer trainers with the Guide Dog Foundation of the Baltimore metro area. They see regular puppies turn into heroes.
The foundation, headquartered in New York, utilizes hand-selected volunteers to train guide dogs for the blind. Franz and Spawn-van Berkum have more than 10 years? combined experience training pure Labrador retrievers, cross-breed retrievers and labradoodles.
There is an extensive approval process for anyone interested in becoming a puppy walker.
It includes an application, a house visit and can often take up to a month.
Once approved, the volunteer trainer will have the dog for a year to 15 months.
The dog goes virtually everywhere with the trainer, including work, so puppy walkers must also get approval from their bosses to bring the dog to the office.
Only 45 percent of the dogs make it as an official guide dog, but for the other 55 percent, the trainer?s hard work is not in vain.
“Sometimes, if [the dog] doesn?t have the self-confidence required to become a guide dog, they will place the dog within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or with a social worker for therapy,” Franz said.
When a guide dog retires, or ages beyond being a good guide, the owner?s first option is to keep the dog or give the animal to a friend.
The second option is to offer the dog back to the trainer.
Although Franz says that giving the puppy up at the end of the training is hard for the puppy walkers, it?s all worth it.
“One 10-year-old volunteer said to me, ?It?s hard giving him up, but someone else needs him more than I do,?” Franz recalled.
“[The owners] keep in touch with us, they give us updates,” Spawn-van Berkum said. “We meet the blind owner with the dog; that?s the wonderful full circle. I think it?s a valuable community service project because you give yourself and your heart and soul.”
