The Seeing Eye dog guide training school opens in Nashville - January 29th, 1929

On this day in 1929, the Seeing Eye was established as the first guide dog training school in the United States.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that gives a quick look it's something that happened
a long time ago. Today I'm Gabe Lucier and in
this episode, we're talking about the history of seeing eye dogs,

(00:22):
a cogent reminder that the canine species is man's best
friend for a reason. The day was January twenty ninth,
nineteen twenty nine, the Seeing I was established as the
first guide dog training school in the United States. It's

(00:45):
hard to say for exactly how long dogs have been
helping blind humans, but based on ancient artwork dating as
far back as the first century, it seems the partnership
is a very old one. Indeed, however, guide dog didn't
become part of the medical establishment until the seventeen fifties,
when a Paris hospital for the blind began training them systematically.

(01:09):
Within a few decades, the practice spread to Austria, where
a trainer named Johann Wilhelm Klein developed one of the
first formalized methods for instructing guide dogs. His breeds of
choice were shepherds and poodles, and while you don't see
too many guide poodles. Today, German shepherds are still one
of the most popular breeds for training. Klein also came

(01:32):
up with the idea of using a stiff harness system
to make a blind person more attuned to their dog's movements.
As he explained in a textbook he wrote on the subject, quote,
a rigid connection allows the person to feel when a
dog is making a side movement or standing still, something
that a soft leash cannot accomplish. Klein's pioneering techniques helped

(01:55):
pave the way for the modern guide dog movement that
began in Europe. In the night eighteen twenties. After the
First World War, thousands of German soldiers returned home blinded
or visually impaired, usually by mustard gas. This prompted the
creation of experimental training schools where dogs were taught helpful
skills to help blind veterans live more independently. Around the

(02:20):
same time, a wealthy American dog trainer named Dorothy Harrison
Eustace was busy setting up a training facility of her
own in Switzerland. She'd been hired to breed and train
German shepherds for the Swiss Army, and in nineteen twenty seven,
she paid a visit to a dog training clinic in Potsdam,
Germany to compare techniques. Eustace was blown away by the

(02:42):
training exercises she observed there, so much so that she
wrote an article about the experience for the Saturday Evening Post.
She concluded the piece with a full throated endorsement of
the German guide dog model, writing quote, no longer dependent
on a member of the family, a friend, or a
paid attendant, the blind can once more take up their

(03:04):
normal lives as nearly as possible where they left them off.
Each can begin or go back to a wage earning occupation,
secure in the knowledge that he can get to and
from his work safely and without costs, that crowds in
traffic have no longer any terrors for him, and that
his evenings can be spent among friends without responsibility or burden.

(03:26):
And last, but far from least, that long, healthful walks
are now possible to exercise off the unhealthy fat of inactivity,
and so keep the body strong and fit. Gentlemen, Again,
without reservation, I give you the shepherd Dog. That article,
titled the Seeing Eye, garnered considerable attention in the US,

(03:49):
especially among blind people who wanted to know how they
could obtain a trained guide dog of their own. Among
those interested parties was Morris Frank, a nineteen year old
from Nashville, Tennessee, who had been blinded in two separate accidents.
Frustrated by his lack of mobility and his dependence on others,
Frank wrote a letter to Eustace asking for her help

(04:12):
train me. He implored, and I will bring back my
dog and show people here how a blind man can
be absolutely on his own. The problem with his request
was that Eustace had never trained a guide dog before.
Her specialty was police dogs. Still, she was moved by
Frank's letter and agreed to help as best she could.

(04:33):
For the next several months, Eustace worked with her partner
at the facility, Eliot S. Jack Humphrey, on adapting their
training regimen to better suit the needs of a blind person.
Once they had it all worked out, they began training
a dog for Frank, a female German shepherd named Buddy.
Frank joined them in Switzerland in April of nineteen twenty

(04:54):
eight and spent the next six weeks training with Buddy
to learn how to work together to navigate the world.
When the course was complete, the newly bonded pair returned
to the US, where Buddy made headlines as the first
formally trained guide dog in the country. Not long after,
reporters asked Frank how having a guide dog had improved

(05:14):
his life, and he provided them with a pretty compelling answer.
With Buddy at his side, Frank gave a public demonstration
by walking across one of New York's most hazardous thoroughfares,
West Street, or as it's known to locals, Death Avenue.
The pair made it through without a scratch, and Frank
sent a one word celebratory telegram to the woman who

(05:36):
had made it possible. It said, simply success. Buoyed by
the positive press, Frank worked with Eustace to form a
guide dog training school right in his hometown of Nashville.
The organization, dubbed the Seeing Eye after her article, was
officially formed on January twenty ninth, nineteen twenty nine, and

(05:56):
the first class was held the following month. It took
some time time for people to warm up to the
idea of dogs leading people through public places, but Frank
and Buddy gradually won them over, and little by little,
Seeing Eye dogs became a common sight in the US.
In nineteen thirty one, two years after founding The Seeing
I in Nashville, Frank relocated the organization to Whippany, New Jersey,

(06:20):
where he felt the climate would be more conducive to
dog training. The school remained there until the late nineteen sixties,
when it moved again to its current headquarters in Morris Township,
New Jersey. Since its founding, The Seeing I has partnered
nearly twenty thousand specially trained dogs with blind or visually
impaired people in the US and Canada, and while it

(06:41):
may be the oldest operating guide dog school in the world,
it's still going strong, teaching new tricks to this day.
I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
have a second and you're so inclined, consider keeping up

(07:02):
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us at TDI HC Show. You can also rate or
review the show on Apple Podcasts, or you can get
in touch directly by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia
dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,
and thank you for listening I'll see you back here

(07:23):
again tomorrow for another day in history class.