January 19, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, The History Guy tell us the story of the life of the youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Rudyard Kipling, and how it was filled with tragedy. Christine Benninger, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind, shares about the unique training process for these extraordinary animals and the special bond they share with their owner.
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Time Codes:
00:00 - Triumph and Disaster: The Life of Rudyard Kipling
23:00 - Enhancing Lives, One Guide Dog at a Time
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
They're some of our favorites. And now onto the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
(00:30):
heard here at Our American Stories. The life of the
youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rudyard Kipling,
was filled with tragedy. He survived a difficult childhood to
go on to become one of the most celebrated authors
of his day, penning such classics as The Jungle Book
and Just So Stories. Here's the History Guy with the
(00:51):
story of Rudyard Kipling. Now a ninjas sent a clin
what are used to spend my time? So of our
majesty the Queen of all the Blackfeet to cruel The
finest man I knew was Regimental Beastie Gungadin, was Dinn Daniel, Brick,
Dusk Gungaden, high Supper, hithero Water, bring it to Parry
lowe Yes, Squishy Noles, old Idol Gungaden. Written in eighteen ninety,
(01:14):
the poem Gungadin was one of the most famous poems
in the world, and it's time, chronicles the life of
a British soldier in the Indian offers an unlikely hero
in the person of Gungaden, the regimental water bearer, who
represents an idea, perhaps surprising to the soldier narrator, that
a person's worth is not defined by their race. The
poem has inspired films and songs, and its famous last line,
(01:39):
You're a better man than I am Gungaden is an
off quoted bit of praise, but the author of the poem,
the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature,
lived a tragic life. Roger Kipling, the author of such
beloved classics as The Jungle Book and Captain's Courageous, suffered
an abusive and difficult childhood. Went on to become one
(02:01):
of the most famous authors of his time, but lived
a life of tragedy. The father of three, only one
of his children would survive him. RODGERD. Kipling was born
to Lockwood Kipling, who was the head of an art school,
and his wife Alice, in Bombay, India, on December thirtieth,
eighteen sixty five. They entrusted the early care of their
son to an Indian nurse who carried the young Kipling
(02:23):
with her during her daily duties to the bazaar. He
was with her so much that Kipling's first language and
the one that he said he spoke in his dreams,
was Hindi. But then There's always reminded Kipling to speak
only English to his parents so that they didn't necessarily
know the extent of his fluency. Kipling's parents were concerned
about the health of their amiable son, who was nicknamed
the little Friend of the World because of his friendly attitude,
(02:45):
and their second child, a daughter named Alice whom everyone
called Tricks, who was born a few years later. Typhoid, cholera,
and other epidemics were common, partially because the causes of
the disease were unknown, and the Kiplings believed their children
would be safer from potential illness. Back in England, they
found a boarding house in the south of England that
(03:07):
seemed like the perfect place, but they apparently didn't check
all the appropriate references, and it was an unfortunate decision
for Rudyard and Tricks. The family that ran the boarding house,
called the Holloways, told the children that their parents had
left him behind in England because they had been bad.
There never seemed to be enough to eat. Kiplinger called
the lady of the house, quizzing him about his daily
(03:29):
activities and then picking aparties every answer, and an effort
to catch him in a lie, The son cruelly beat
the five year old Kipling with his fists. If the
children cried after receiving a letter from their parents, they
were locked in the basement for an entire day. The
word help was carved into the house's walls by one
of the children kept by the Holloways. It was bleak.
Kipling forever after called the place the House of Desolation.
(03:54):
Later in life, Kipling wrote a semi autobiographical novel entitled
Bob Bob Black Sheep that detailed the line lives of
a six and three year old who were left in
the care of an abusive family in the south of England.
Kipling's readers didn't know that he had modeled the story
after his own life. For when young lips have drunk deep,
but the better waters of hate, suspicion, and despair, all
(04:14):
the love in the world will not wholly take away
that knowledge, Though it may turn darkened eyes for a
while to the light and teach faith where no faith
was bab Bab Blackheep, eighteen eighty nine. After Rudgard's mother
came to take care of children home six years later,
she was putting Kipling to bed and went to give
him a kiss good night. He automatically threw up his
hands as if to ward off an attack. It was
(04:36):
then that she realized how awful the boarding house life
had been to her children. Emotional scars ran deep tricks
would struggle with what might be now labeled as bipolar
disorder for her entire life. Rudgard, on the other hand,
had intermittent periods of what he called depression and according
to some historians, and an ability to form a close
relationship with his wife. Kipling said he'd dealt with his
(04:58):
variable moods by working long hours, sometimes as much as
sixteen hours and a day. He would later write to
a friend, my head is all queer and I'm going
to have to have it mended someday, But that someday
never seemed to come. Kipling received his formal education at
United Services College in Devon. It was another boarding school,
and one at which he didn't necessarily thrive, who called
(05:20):
being terrified as this fellow students hung him by his
ankles out of the window on the fifth floor of
a dormitory. Never a particularly athletic the dreamy. In Bookish,
Kipling was described as an indifferent student. Yet there be
certain times in the young man's life when, through great
sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt
and steered away. So they passes at one step to
(05:41):
the more sorrowful state of manhood The Dream of Duncan Paranus,
eighteen eighty four. But there were echoes of Kipling's earlier
amiable attitude towards the world. One of his classmates remembered
him as a keepering, podgy little fellow, as precocious as
ever could be. When he finished his time at United
(06:02):
service As College, Kipling took a job at a newspaper
near his parents in Lahore, India, which is now in Pakistan.
Kipling began publishing his poetry, which was incredibly well received
by the public. Almost from the beginning of his career.
He formed a close relationship with an American publicist in
London named Walcott Bellistier, and when Ballastre unexpectedly died. Kipling
married the deceased man's sister, Kerry, in January eighteen ninety two.
(06:25):
The rush wedding was small, with only four people in attendance,
because London had virtually come to a standstill there was
a crippling influenza epidemic swooping in the city. Kipling described
the atmosphere in his biography as it was in the
thick of an influenza epidemic, when the undertakers had run
out of black horses and the dead had to be
content with brown ones. And you're listening to the history
(06:46):
guy tell the story of the youngest winner in the
history of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rudyard Kipling. And
what a childhood he suffered at the hands of goodness monsters,
the House of Desolation, the story of the boarding house
he grew up in. An indifferent student. You hear that
(07:08):
a lot about really talented folks. They're indifferent students because
they just haven't been tapped for their potential and their talent.
We capture that often on the stories we tell here.
When we continue more of the remarkable life of poet
and writer Rudyard Kipling here on our American story. Folks,
(07:31):
if you love the great American stories we tell and
love America like we do, we're asking you to become
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Go to our American Stories dot com now and go
(07:52):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com. And
we continue with our American Stories and the story of
(08:12):
Rudyard Kipling. Let's return to the history guy. A couple
honeymoon in the United States for a time and went
on to Japan, where they received news that their bank
had collapsed and taken much of their fortune with it.
They returned to the States, Carry's home country pursus. At
home near her family in Rattleboro, Vermont, Carrie Kipling discovered
she was pregnant and gave birth to the couple's first child, Josephine,
(08:35):
on twenty ninth, eighteen ninety two. In his biography, Kipling
wrote that his daughter was born in three foot of
snow on the night of twenty nine December eighteen ninety two,
her mother's birthday being the thirty first, and mind the
thirtieth on the same month, we congratulated her on her
sense of the fitness of things. Kipling described this period
of his life as the happiest and most productive as
his career. He loved living in the countryside of Vermont,
(08:58):
away from the noisy cities or temptation like alcohol or opium.
He wrote such classics as The Jungle Book, Captain's Courageous,
both of which would later be made into films, and
other books filled with short stories and poetry. Now this
is the law of the jungle, as old and as
true as the sky, and the wolf that shall keep
it may prosper, But the wolf that shall break it
(09:18):
must die. As the creeper the girdles the tree trunk.
The law runneth poured him back, For the strength of
the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the
wolf is the pack. The Second Jungle Book, eighteen ninety five.
In eighteen ninety six, Carrie gave birth to the couple's
second child, a daughter named Elsie, and a son quickly followed.
(09:40):
In eighteen ninety seven, whom they named John Kipling began
telling his eldest daughter, Josephine, whom he called Effie, versions
of his now beloved just so stories for little children
every night before bed, he said, in the evening there
were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you
were not allowed to alter those by one single little
word that would be told just so, or Effie would
wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at
(10:02):
last they came to be like charms, all three of them.
The Whale Tale, the Camel Tale, and the rhinoceros Tale.
The Jesso stories are imaginative stories about how animals begin
to look and act the way they do in nature.
The titles detail each story. There's how the whale got
his throat and how the camel got his hump. The
enduring popularity of these stories speaks to the loving care
with which Kipling wrote him for his children. I keep
(10:25):
six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew.
Their names are what and where and when and how
and why and who? The Elephant's Child nineteen o two.
The Kipling's idyllic existence in the United States ended when
Kipling had a public run in with Carrie's brother, Baby Balister.
Bellister struggled with addiction to alcohol and money troubles. After
(10:47):
publicly threatening to blow off Kipling's head, Ballister was arrested
and the trial followed, which drew quite a lot of
attention from the press because of Kipling's popularity as an author.
As for his part, Kipling seemed to mourn the loss
of his privacy invitually moved his family back to England
in an effort to reclaim it. We're all islands shouting
lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding. The Light
(11:10):
they Failed eighteen ninety one. Unfortunately, he suffered one of
the largest losses of his life. The Kipling's eldest daughter, Josephine,
age six, succumbed to pneumonia on March sixth, eighteen ninety nine.
Kipling had been ill at the same time, and at
first the family feared that they would lose them both. However,
at Kipling survived to discover that his daughter had not.
(11:33):
The world is very lovely, and it is very horrible,
and it doesn't care about your life or mine or
anything else. The Light they failed eighteen ninety one, when
the Jesso Stories for Children was first published in nineteen
o two. Kipling illustrated the stories himself. The timing of
the publication so soon after the loss of Josephine was
particularly poignant. The loss forever after changed the author. According
(11:57):
to those close to him, the man who had once
been described as a friend of the world smiled and
laughed a little less often. Kipling sister Tricks said he
became a sadder and a harder man. Kipling received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in nineteen o seven, and remains
the youngest person ever to have obtained the honor, but
his star seemed already to be fading. He espoused imperialistic
(12:18):
political ideas and encourage countries to pursue imperialistic policies. Kipling
wrote the poem The white Man's Burden, and an effort
to encourage the United States to take a more active
role in the Philippines. Take up the white Man's Burden,
Send forth the best gie breed, Go bind your sons
to exile, to serve your captive's need. The white Man's
Burden eighteen ninety nine. He was also in support of
(12:42):
the Great War World War One, encouraged his son John
to serve the conflict. At first, John failed the medical
examination to join the Royal Navy because of his weak eyesight.
He attempted to list two more times, so it was
rejected both times, and then, using his father's connections, Kipling
joined the Irish Guards to part in the bloody Battle
of Lose, the largest British assault of nineteen fifteen. John Kipling,
(13:04):
age eighteen, was assumed to have been blown apart by shells,
and no piece of his corps was ever recovered. Firs
family to morn Over. Twenty fifteen, the Commonwealth Grave Commission
announced it had located the grave of John Kipling, whose
remains been buried in a French cemetery. If any question
why we died, tell them because our fathers lied. Epitests
(13:25):
of War nineteen eighteen. This second last hit Kipling and
his wife incredibly hard. Kipling said he read the novels
of Jane Austen to his wife and remaining daughter over
and over again in an effort to shake the grief
he felt at John's death. He also joined the group
that would later become the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in
honor of his lost son. Kipling suggested some of the
biblical verses the Commission put on the stones of the
(13:47):
war dead. He also wrote a regimental history of the
Irish Guards, which was published in nineteen twenty three. It
has been considered by some to be one of the
best examples of a regimental history ever penned. And there
were too many almost children, of whom no record remains.
They came out of Worlie with the constant renewed drafts,
lived the span of a second lieutenant's life, and were
(14:10):
spent the Irish Guards in the Great War. Nineteen twenty three,
while morning his lost children, Kipling's health began a studied decline.
Kipling suffered from duado olslers, which it is believed eventually
killed him at age seventy. The writer's ashes are interred
at Westminster Abbey's Poets Corner This Forever and the remains
of Thomas Hardy Charles Dickens. Kipling's only surviving child, Elsie,
(14:33):
married George Bambridge, a diplomat, in nineteen twenty four. She
never had any children, so Kipling's budline ended. She died
on Able twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six. Like some celebrities, today.
Kipling's death was reported ahead of its time. Reading about
it in a magazine, he wrote to the magazine, I've
just read that I died. Don't forget to delete me
(14:54):
from your list of subscribers. Many of his political viewpoints,
notably about imperialism, no held sway in the international world
as he grew older, and he did receive much criticism
for that. George Orwell described him as a jingo imperialist
who was morally insensitive and a gutter patriot. His literary
career had a meteoric rise, but then seemed to stagnate,
(15:16):
and he often spoke to friends about the foibles of
early fame, like his idyllic views of empire. In many ways,
Rodger Kipling seemed to become history even before his days
had passed, especially in the way that the loss of
his children affected him. But what is left of Rodger
Kipling when everything else is turned to dust? Or his
(15:38):
writings like perhaps his most famous poem if pen in
eighteen ninety five, which seems to represent his tragic life
but exhorts us all to be the best that we
can be, even in the face of terrible loss. If
you could make one heap of all your winnings, risk
it on one turn of pigeon toss, lose, start at
(16:01):
your beginnings, never say one word about your loss. If
you can force your heart and nerve and send you
to serve your term long after they are gone, and
so hold on when there is nothing in you except
the will that tells them all. Hold on if you
can talk to crowd to keep your virtue, walk with kings,
or lose the common touch. If neither foe nor loving
(16:23):
friend can hurt you. If all men matter to you
but not too much. If you can feel the everlasting
minute with sixty seconds of distance run, then yours is
the earth and everything that's in it. And what's more,
you'll be a man, my son and great job is
(16:46):
always by Greg Hangler bringing us the story and a
special thanks as always to the History Guy. History deserves
to be Remembered. That's where you can find him and
his work on the YouTube channel History Guy. History Deserves
to be Remembered. Just do that Google search and you'll
enjoy what you see. Poets Corner is remarkable all by
(17:07):
itself with memorials, but the very few who actually got
buried there include as was indicated not just Dickens and
Chaucer and Tennyson, but in the end Kipling too, joining
this August breed. And in addition there are memorials for
all Jane Austen and Blake the Poet, and Alden and
(17:27):
Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the list goes on and on.
There was something special about the British talent, the literature,
poetry and all else. It may be one of the
great special gifts that the British gave us was a
shared and common language, not just the laws, but the
(17:48):
common language. The story of Rudyard Kipling a story of
loss and tragedy and beauty. Here on our American story,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories, and up next
we're gonna have a little fun. If you're having a
rough day, this story is sure to make you smile.
Guide Dogs for the Blind is the largest guide dog
school in North America and the second largest in the world.
Christine Binninger, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind, is
(18:29):
here to share her stories about some possum friends and
all that they do. Please forgive me for all the
dog puns. Here's Christine with this beautiful story. Guide Dogs
for the Blind was founded in nineteen forty two to
serve individuals who were blinded during World War Two. The
(18:51):
very first founders of Guide Dogs for the Blind were
military dog trainers. They had the idea that dogs could
make a real difference in people's lives and helping them
negotiate life with more freedom and more independence. We breed
labs Golden Retrievers, and then we breed across between the two.
(19:13):
Dogs are individually just as different as people. So dog personalities, wants, needs,
the way they act. Each dog is unique, but that
works for us, and the reason is our clients are unique.
Part of the magic of Guide Dogs for the Blind
is the matching process and finding exactly the right match,
(19:35):
and that match is based on what your lifestyle is.
If you're somebody who works in downtown Manhattan and takes
a train and then a bus to get into your
office every day, you have to walk the streets of Manhattan,
that's a little bit of a different dog than you know,
if you're living in a suburb and you know, maybe
(19:56):
you're doing volunteer work every day, or you're meeting friends
for coffee. Different dogs like to work in different environments.
We match by personality. If you are somebody who's super
outgoing and really likes talking with people, we're going to
match you with a dog that's super outgoing and is
going to elicit that interaction for you. If you're somebody
(20:20):
who's a little more reserved and you know you just
want to get from point A to point B, you
really don't want to be talking with a lot of
people along the way, we're going to match you with
a dog that's a little more reserved and won't elicit
as much. We also make certain that we match our
clients preferences. We have clients that their visual impairment allows
(20:43):
them to see dark colors, so we'll match them with
a black lab or allows them to see lighter colors,
so we'll match them with a yellow lab or a
golden retriever. The matching process is complicated, as you can
well imagine. You've got a lot of different traits that
we have to match for the person and you know
dogs each have their different traits as well, and that's
(21:04):
why I say there's always a bit of magic and
every single match that's made. We were the first service
dog organization ever to employ positive reinforcement training methods. Traditional
training methods basically set a dog up to fail and
then you punish them for failure, with the theory being
(21:26):
that the dog remembers that and doesn't want to be
punished again. Positive reinforcement training is setting the dog up
for success and rewarding them for success. It feels a
lot better to be set up for success and being
rewarded for that versus being set up for failure. It's
made a huge difference for our dogs. So the interesting
(21:47):
thing is that the skills of a dog trained with
essentially punishment based training versus positive reinforcement training, their skills
are just as good. The difference is the excitement out working.
So a punishment based dog who's been trained in that
methodology isn't excited about going to work because what they're
(22:10):
thinking is that, oh my god, if I get something wrong,
I'm going to be punished. Dogs that are trained with
a positive reinforcement methodology are so excited to work. It's like,
oh my god, the harness is out. Yes, yes, yes,
let's go. And honestly, that makes a huge difference and
it makes you feel better too. The other interesting thing
(22:32):
is that when we were using punishment based training, it
took us twenty four weeks to train a guide dog
in their skills. Positive reinforcement training. It now takes us
twelve weeks. So you can see there's so many benefits
to it, not only from the psychological aspects to the dogs,
but they learn much faster and that allows us to
(22:54):
be able to train more guide dogs and train more clients.
People have to really commit to the guide dog lifestyle.
In order for a guide dog to be successful, you
have to get them onto a routine. Guide dogs are
trained not to relieve themselves and harness, so we all
need bathroom breaks, right. You need to make certain that
(23:16):
you're consistently feeding at the same times that you're consistently
relieving at the same times you have to take your
dog to the vet. I mean so, even the way
that we interface with our clients is all unique. We
don't charge for any of our services. We fly people
out to our campuses, they live with us for two
(23:37):
weeks and train with their dogs. We fly them home,
and then we continue to follow up with our clients
to make sure that things are working well. And in
addition to that, we also pay for all the veterinary
costs over the dog's lifetime, to make certain that no
one is put in a position of saying do I
(23:57):
pay my rent or do I take my dog to
the vet. Our dogs are trained athletes have to be
kept in peak condition, so we want to always make
certain that our guide dogs have the best medical care.
And all of our work is supported through donation. It's
a huge community that supports guide dogs for the blind.
(24:19):
We have approximately three hundred staff members and over four
thousand volunteers, so we actually start training our dogs at
three days of age. We have a whole group of
volunteers called cuddlers who start cuddling our babies, and that's
literally what they do. They cuddle them so that these
(24:41):
babies become used to people, become used to human touch.
And there's nothing scary about a person starting very early
on with very gentle, loving touch, which the puppies react
to obviously in a positive way. It says a lot
about our breeders. A brand new mama allowing somebody to
(25:03):
sit with her babies and hold her babies at three
days of age is pretty remarkable. Our clients range an
age from fourteen to ninety four. What the qualifications are
for getting a guide dog are that you are legally blind,
that you have a need to go somewhere every day.
(25:25):
That doesn't mean that you have to have a job.
You know something every day at a minimum, I get
out and I go for a walk. And the reason
for that is that the team needs to work together
every day. Otherwise you, as a handler lose your skills
or the guide dog loses their skills. In order to
keep that team working seamlessly together, you've got to get
(25:45):
out and work every day. The third requirement is that
you already have the orientation of mobility skills. Guide dogs
are not GPS systems. You can't just say to your
guide dog, take me to the nearest Starbucks. You have
to know essentially where that Starbucks is, and then you
(26:06):
need to give your dog the commands for how to
get there and your dog will get you there safely.
And the fourth requirement is that you are living somewhere
that will support a guide dog. Oftentimes, particularly in rural environments,
there are a lot of awfullysh aggressive dogs. If a
(26:26):
guide dog feels that they're going to be attacked every
time that they walk out their door, typically then they're
going to stop working. So if people meet those four criteria,
then we bring them into our school and they get
a guide dog. Nearly sixteen thousand teams have graduated since
our founding. Very proud of that. And you've been listening
(26:49):
to Christine Benninger, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind,
and my goodness, what a scaled operation she's running. And
it's at the behest of so many donors who want
to see this happened. When we come back more of
this great American story of Guide Dogs for the Blind,
and so much more. By the way, that whole cuddling
thing sounds like we could all use such an endeavor
(27:11):
or such a week when we come back more of
this great story here on our American story, and we
(27:38):
return to our American stories and to Christine Binninger's story,
the CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Here's Christine
to talk about the dogs and all that goes into
the unique training for these very special animals. When you
look at service dogs and all the different things that
(27:58):
service dogs do, GI'D work is the most complicated for
two reasons. One is that guide dogs have to get
everything right one hundred percent of the time. They can't
just walk their person into traffic once, or they can't
walk you into a light pole once, So guide dogs
(28:18):
get no second chances. They've got to do it right. Secondly,
they have to evaluate whether the command they're given is
going to keep the team safe or not. And if
the guide dog believes it won't keep the team safe,
it'll have to disobey the command and do exactly the opposite.
Now that's even tough for humans. I don't know how
(28:40):
often you say no to your boss, but that's a
hard thing to do, and dogs leave in a hierarchy,
so basically saying no to their boss. It takes a
special dog to be able to do that. If a
dog is given a command to cross the street and
that handler is not hearing the electric car that's coming
(29:02):
around the corner, the dog has to pull their handler
away from the street rather than walking into the street.
So that's an example of what we call intelligent disobedience.
Guide dogs are trained to do all kinds of things.
When you walk into a room, or you walk onto
a bus, they are trained to find you an open seat,
(29:24):
so they'll take you to the first available open seat.
Many of our clients train their dogs for very specific things.
Like we have a client she said, wherever I go,
I've always got my water bottle with me, and so
I'm always looking for recycling bins. So she's trained her
guide dog when she needs to to find a recycling
(29:46):
bin so that she can get rid of her water bottle.
You can train your dog to take you to Starbucks.
Once your dog knows where Starbucks is and that's where
you go on a regular basis, you can just say,
take me to Starbucks. All kinds of things like that.
What I'll call the magic of guide dogs is that
the team becomes so close because the team is together
(30:10):
twenty four seven and relies on each other. Our guide
dogs are not trained in being able to sense medical
changes in our clients. Somehow they get to know their
person well enough that they do. This happened about two
years ago. We have a client that does work in Manhattan.
(30:32):
She works in one of those buildings that is like
a gazillion floors, and so you have to take a
very specific elevator to your bank of floors, and so
her guide dog knows exactly which elevator to go to.
And one particular day, her guide dog didn't take her
to the bank of elevators, but took her to a
(30:53):
group of couches that were sort of off the lobby.
And when she got to the group of couches, she
realized she wasn't feeling very well. She sat down and
had a stroke. So did her guide dog. I cry sorry.
Did her guide dog know that she was going to
(31:14):
have a stroke? No, but the guide dog knew something
was wrong. What our guide dogs do is take care
of their people. So the guide dog knew getting in
that elevator probably wasn't the best thing to do. Getting
her to a safer spots was the best thing to do.
Those kinds of stories happen all the time, not through training,
(31:38):
but through that relationship that grows between a guide dog
and their person. What I find really remarkable about our
clients is the different types of things that people do.
Our clients are mothers raising three children. We have people
(32:01):
who are businesspeople. We have people who are chefs, who
are musicians, who are teachers. We actually have a couple
of clients that have just competed in the Paralympics over
in Japan. What a guide dog does is give people
confidence to be able to do what they want to
do in life, and so as a result, you see
(32:24):
these just remarkable things that our clients do. We have
a client that he's a professional hiker. He's hiked with
his guide dog the Pacific Crest Trail, He's hiked the
Appalachian Trail. I mean, he's hiked all over the world,
and he does that as someone who's blind with a
(32:45):
guide dog out for days and days and days by himself.
All of that, in my mind, is truly remarkable. Guide
Dogs for the Blind has made a concerted effort to
target youth. Kids have a tendency to not want to
(33:05):
be sort of called out as different, right, and so
much of who we become as adults is based on
what we experience as young person. So canine buddies they're
not guide dogs, that they are companion dogs, well trained
companion dogs for individuals who are too young yet to
(33:26):
get a guide dog. We do have a lower age limit,
but we don't have an upper age limit. We're giving
canine buddies to families with children as young as five.
And what a canine buddy does is not only start
to orient kids around dogs, but most importantly is building
(33:47):
their confidence. You know, hearing from parents about how you
know they're five year old, was not making friends in school,
afraid to dress themselves, wouldn't go to the bathroom on
their own own, Mommy had to be there. And once
they had a canine buddy, all of a sudden, wanting
to be independent, getting dressed on their own, starting to
(34:08):
make friends. They're the kind of coolest kid on the
block with this really neat dog. Some kids have night terrors.
With a canine buddy, those night terrors go away. So
canine buddies, while they're not specifically service dogs, make a
huge difference in the life of very young children. Then
(34:29):
we have a whole host of programs that are targeted
towards high school kids. That's a very sort of vulnerable time, right,
wasn't my best years if I think about high school.
So we have things like what we call GDB Camp
for high school kids to get together with other kids
(34:51):
with similar disabilities. They actually have the opportunity to work
with a guide dog, sleep with a guide dog overnight,
plus just have a great time just being campers, just
being kids. We fly kids in from all over North
America and there's all kinds of fun things to do,
you know, tandem bike riding, canoeing, swimming. This last year,
(35:15):
we actually had the kids visit a llama farm and
have the opportunity to walk allama. They all agreed that
walking a guide dog was a lot easier than walking
a llama. Oftentimes, kids that have a visual disability don't
know anybody else who does, so lifelong friendships are made.
(35:37):
It's a great place, it's fun place. We've grown from
a very small, fledgling organization to really, you know, the
largest guide school in North America. That's not easy. So
I'm very grateful to my counterparts who were a part
of this organization and set the stage for who we
(35:59):
are today. Because of their efforts, we've been able to grow,
We've been able to fund ourselves and really become the
leader in the guide dog industry. It's a huge community
that supports our work. I've always been inspired by the
difference that animals make in our lives. It's really an
(36:20):
honor to be a part of this organization because this
is an organization that saves lives. It gives people their
independence and allows people to live the life that they
want to live. And I can't think of anything more
inspirational than that and a great job is always on
(36:42):
the production and the storytelling by Madison and special thanks
to Christine Benninger, the CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind.
To learn more and to help support their mission, go
to Guideedogs dot com. By the way, this is just
a perfect example of American generosity at work. He's working
at a nonprofit. People are donating money, people are volunteering,
(37:02):
they're cuddling with dogs. All of these things they're doing
to help a stranger's life just move along a little better.
And my goodness, what she said about what the dog's
mission was what our guide dogs do is take care
of their people, and they do it not through the
mere training, but through the strong relationship they build with
(37:23):
their client. And anyone who has an animal knows what
that relationship means. And a special thanks to all the
people who support this great organization. Again, go to guide
Dogs dot com if you love the mission and go
ahead and help them do what they do. The story
of Christine Benenger, the story of Guide Dogs for the Blind,
and the story in the end of the generosity of
(37:45):
the American people. Here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
They're some of our favorites. And now onto the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
(00:30):
heard here at Our American Stories. The life of the
youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rudyard Kipling,
was filled with tragedy. He survived a difficult childhood to
go on to become one of the most celebrated authors
of his day, penning such classics as The Jungle Book
and Just So Stories. Here's the History Guy with the
(00:51):
story of Rudyard Kipling. Now a ninjas sent a clin
what are used to spend my time? So of our
majesty the Queen of all the Blackfeet to cruel The
finest man I knew was Regimental Beastie Gungadin, was Dinn Daniel, Brick,
Dusk Gungaden, high Supper, hithero Water, bring it to Parry
lowe Yes, Squishy Noles, old Idol Gungaden. Written in eighteen ninety,
(01:14):
the poem Gungadin was one of the most famous poems
in the world, and it's time, chronicles the life of
a British soldier in the Indian offers an unlikely hero
in the person of Gungaden, the regimental water bearer, who
represents an idea, perhaps surprising to the soldier narrator, that
a person's worth is not defined by their race. The
poem has inspired films and songs, and its famous last line,
(01:39):
You're a better man than I am Gungaden is an
off quoted bit of praise, but the author of the poem,
the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature,
lived a tragic life. Roger Kipling, the author of such
beloved classics as The Jungle Book and Captain's Courageous, suffered
an abusive and difficult childhood. Went on to become one
(02:01):
of the most famous authors of his time, but lived
a life of tragedy. The father of three, only one
of his children would survive him. RODGERD. Kipling was born
to Lockwood Kipling, who was the head of an art school,
and his wife Alice, in Bombay, India, on December thirtieth,
eighteen sixty five. They entrusted the early care of their
son to an Indian nurse who carried the young Kipling
(02:23):
with her during her daily duties to the bazaar. He
was with her so much that Kipling's first language and
the one that he said he spoke in his dreams,
was Hindi. But then There's always reminded Kipling to speak
only English to his parents so that they didn't necessarily
know the extent of his fluency. Kipling's parents were concerned
about the health of their amiable son, who was nicknamed
the little Friend of the World because of his friendly attitude,
(02:45):
and their second child, a daughter named Alice whom everyone
called Tricks, who was born a few years later. Typhoid, cholera,
and other epidemics were common, partially because the causes of
the disease were unknown, and the Kiplings believed their children
would be safer from potential illness. Back in England, they
found a boarding house in the south of England that
(03:07):
seemed like the perfect place, but they apparently didn't check
all the appropriate references, and it was an unfortunate decision
for Rudyard and Tricks. The family that ran the boarding house,
called the Holloways, told the children that their parents had
left him behind in England because they had been bad.
There never seemed to be enough to eat. Kiplinger called
the lady of the house, quizzing him about his daily
(03:29):
activities and then picking aparties every answer, and an effort
to catch him in a lie, The son cruelly beat
the five year old Kipling with his fists. If the
children cried after receiving a letter from their parents, they
were locked in the basement for an entire day. The
word help was carved into the house's walls by one
of the children kept by the Holloways. It was bleak.
Kipling forever after called the place the House of Desolation.
(03:54):
Later in life, Kipling wrote a semi autobiographical novel entitled
Bob Bob Black Sheep that detailed the line lives of
a six and three year old who were left in
the care of an abusive family in the south of England.
Kipling's readers didn't know that he had modeled the story
after his own life. For when young lips have drunk deep,
but the better waters of hate, suspicion, and despair, all
(04:14):
the love in the world will not wholly take away
that knowledge, Though it may turn darkened eyes for a
while to the light and teach faith where no faith
was bab Bab Blackheep, eighteen eighty nine. After Rudgard's mother
came to take care of children home six years later,
she was putting Kipling to bed and went to give
him a kiss good night. He automatically threw up his
hands as if to ward off an attack. It was
(04:36):
then that she realized how awful the boarding house life
had been to her children. Emotional scars ran deep tricks
would struggle with what might be now labeled as bipolar
disorder for her entire life. Rudgard, on the other hand,
had intermittent periods of what he called depression and according
to some historians, and an ability to form a close
relationship with his wife. Kipling said he'd dealt with his
(04:58):
variable moods by working long hours, sometimes as much as
sixteen hours and a day. He would later write to
a friend, my head is all queer and I'm going
to have to have it mended someday, But that someday
never seemed to come. Kipling received his formal education at
United Services College in Devon. It was another boarding school,
and one at which he didn't necessarily thrive, who called
(05:20):
being terrified as this fellow students hung him by his
ankles out of the window on the fifth floor of
a dormitory. Never a particularly athletic the dreamy. In Bookish,
Kipling was described as an indifferent student. Yet there be
certain times in the young man's life when, through great
sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt
and steered away. So they passes at one step to
(05:41):
the more sorrowful state of manhood The Dream of Duncan Paranus,
eighteen eighty four. But there were echoes of Kipling's earlier
amiable attitude towards the world. One of his classmates remembered
him as a keepering, podgy little fellow, as precocious as
ever could be. When he finished his time at United
(06:02):
service As College, Kipling took a job at a newspaper
near his parents in Lahore, India, which is now in Pakistan.
Kipling began publishing his poetry, which was incredibly well received
by the public. Almost from the beginning of his career.
He formed a close relationship with an American publicist in
London named Walcott Bellistier, and when Ballastre unexpectedly died. Kipling
married the deceased man's sister, Kerry, in January eighteen ninety two.
(06:25):
The rush wedding was small, with only four people in attendance,
because London had virtually come to a standstill there was
a crippling influenza epidemic swooping in the city. Kipling described
the atmosphere in his biography as it was in the
thick of an influenza epidemic, when the undertakers had run
out of black horses and the dead had to be
content with brown ones. And you're listening to the history
(06:46):
guy tell the story of the youngest winner in the
history of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rudyard Kipling. And
what a childhood he suffered at the hands of goodness monsters,
the House of Desolation, the story of the boarding house
he grew up in. An indifferent student. You hear that
(07:08):
a lot about really talented folks. They're indifferent students because
they just haven't been tapped for their potential and their talent.
We capture that often on the stories we tell here.
When we continue more of the remarkable life of poet
and writer Rudyard Kipling here on our American story. Folks,
(07:31):
if you love the great American stories we tell and
love America like we do, we're asking you to become
a part of the our American Stories family. If you
agree that America is a good and great country, please
make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and
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Go to our American Stories dot com now and go
(07:52):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com. And
we continue with our American Stories and the story of
(08:12):
Rudyard Kipling. Let's return to the history guy. A couple
honeymoon in the United States for a time and went
on to Japan, where they received news that their bank
had collapsed and taken much of their fortune with it.
They returned to the States, Carry's home country pursus. At
home near her family in Rattleboro, Vermont, Carrie Kipling discovered
she was pregnant and gave birth to the couple's first child, Josephine,
(08:35):
on twenty ninth, eighteen ninety two. In his biography, Kipling
wrote that his daughter was born in three foot of
snow on the night of twenty nine December eighteen ninety two,
her mother's birthday being the thirty first, and mind the
thirtieth on the same month, we congratulated her on her
sense of the fitness of things. Kipling described this period
of his life as the happiest and most productive as
his career. He loved living in the countryside of Vermont,
(08:58):
away from the noisy cities or temptation like alcohol or opium.
He wrote such classics as The Jungle Book, Captain's Courageous,
both of which would later be made into films, and
other books filled with short stories and poetry. Now this
is the law of the jungle, as old and as
true as the sky, and the wolf that shall keep
it may prosper, But the wolf that shall break it
(09:18):
must die. As the creeper the girdles the tree trunk.
The law runneth poured him back, For the strength of
the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the
wolf is the pack. The Second Jungle Book, eighteen ninety five.
In eighteen ninety six, Carrie gave birth to the couple's
second child, a daughter named Elsie, and a son quickly followed.
(09:40):
In eighteen ninety seven, whom they named John Kipling began
telling his eldest daughter, Josephine, whom he called Effie, versions
of his now beloved just so stories for little children
every night before bed, he said, in the evening there
were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you
were not allowed to alter those by one single little
word that would be told just so, or Effie would
wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at
(10:02):
last they came to be like charms, all three of them.
The Whale Tale, the Camel Tale, and the rhinoceros Tale.
The Jesso stories are imaginative stories about how animals begin
to look and act the way they do in nature.
The titles detail each story. There's how the whale got
his throat and how the camel got his hump. The
enduring popularity of these stories speaks to the loving care
with which Kipling wrote him for his children. I keep
(10:25):
six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew.
Their names are what and where and when and how
and why and who? The Elephant's Child nineteen o two.
The Kipling's idyllic existence in the United States ended when
Kipling had a public run in with Carrie's brother, Baby Balister.
Bellister struggled with addiction to alcohol and money troubles. After
(10:47):
publicly threatening to blow off Kipling's head, Ballister was arrested
and the trial followed, which drew quite a lot of
attention from the press because of Kipling's popularity as an author.
As for his part, Kipling seemed to mourn the loss
of his privacy invitually moved his family back to England
in an effort to reclaim it. We're all islands shouting
lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding. The Light
(11:10):
they Failed eighteen ninety one. Unfortunately, he suffered one of
the largest losses of his life. The Kipling's eldest daughter, Josephine,
age six, succumbed to pneumonia on March sixth, eighteen ninety nine.
Kipling had been ill at the same time, and at
first the family feared that they would lose them both. However,
at Kipling survived to discover that his daughter had not.
(11:33):
The world is very lovely, and it is very horrible,
and it doesn't care about your life or mine or
anything else. The Light they failed eighteen ninety one, when
the Jesso Stories for Children was first published in nineteen
o two. Kipling illustrated the stories himself. The timing of
the publication so soon after the loss of Josephine was
particularly poignant. The loss forever after changed the author. According
(11:57):
to those close to him, the man who had once
been described as a friend of the world smiled and
laughed a little less often. Kipling sister Tricks said he
became a sadder and a harder man. Kipling received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in nineteen o seven, and remains
the youngest person ever to have obtained the honor, but
his star seemed already to be fading. He espoused imperialistic
(12:18):
political ideas and encourage countries to pursue imperialistic policies. Kipling
wrote the poem The white Man's Burden, and an effort
to encourage the United States to take a more active
role in the Philippines. Take up the white Man's Burden,
Send forth the best gie breed, Go bind your sons
to exile, to serve your captive's need. The white Man's
Burden eighteen ninety nine. He was also in support of
(12:42):
the Great War World War One, encouraged his son John
to serve the conflict. At first, John failed the medical
examination to join the Royal Navy because of his weak eyesight.
He attempted to list two more times, so it was
rejected both times, and then, using his father's connections, Kipling
joined the Irish Guards to part in the bloody Battle
of Lose, the largest British assault of nineteen fifteen. John Kipling,
(13:04):
age eighteen, was assumed to have been blown apart by shells,
and no piece of his corps was ever recovered. Firs
family to morn Over. Twenty fifteen, the Commonwealth Grave Commission
announced it had located the grave of John Kipling, whose
remains been buried in a French cemetery. If any question
why we died, tell them because our fathers lied. Epitests
(13:25):
of War nineteen eighteen. This second last hit Kipling and
his wife incredibly hard. Kipling said he read the novels
of Jane Austen to his wife and remaining daughter over
and over again in an effort to shake the grief
he felt at John's death. He also joined the group
that would later become the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in
honor of his lost son. Kipling suggested some of the
biblical verses the Commission put on the stones of the
(13:47):
war dead. He also wrote a regimental history of the
Irish Guards, which was published in nineteen twenty three. It
has been considered by some to be one of the
best examples of a regimental history ever penned. And there
were too many almost children, of whom no record remains.
They came out of Worlie with the constant renewed drafts,
lived the span of a second lieutenant's life, and were
(14:10):
spent the Irish Guards in the Great War. Nineteen twenty three,
while morning his lost children, Kipling's health began a studied decline.
Kipling suffered from duado olslers, which it is believed eventually
killed him at age seventy. The writer's ashes are interred
at Westminster Abbey's Poets Corner This Forever and the remains
of Thomas Hardy Charles Dickens. Kipling's only surviving child, Elsie,
(14:33):
married George Bambridge, a diplomat, in nineteen twenty four. She
never had any children, so Kipling's budline ended. She died
on Able twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six. Like some celebrities, today.
Kipling's death was reported ahead of its time. Reading about
it in a magazine, he wrote to the magazine, I've
just read that I died. Don't forget to delete me
(14:54):
from your list of subscribers. Many of his political viewpoints,
notably about imperialism, no held sway in the international world
as he grew older, and he did receive much criticism
for that. George Orwell described him as a jingo imperialist
who was morally insensitive and a gutter patriot. His literary
career had a meteoric rise, but then seemed to stagnate,
(15:16):
and he often spoke to friends about the foibles of
early fame, like his idyllic views of empire. In many ways,
Rodger Kipling seemed to become history even before his days
had passed, especially in the way that the loss of
his children affected him. But what is left of Rodger
Kipling when everything else is turned to dust? Or his
(15:38):
writings like perhaps his most famous poem if pen in
eighteen ninety five, which seems to represent his tragic life
but exhorts us all to be the best that we
can be, even in the face of terrible loss. If
you could make one heap of all your winnings, risk
it on one turn of pigeon toss, lose, start at
(16:01):
your beginnings, never say one word about your loss. If
you can force your heart and nerve and send you
to serve your term long after they are gone, and
so hold on when there is nothing in you except
the will that tells them all. Hold on if you
can talk to crowd to keep your virtue, walk with kings,
or lose the common touch. If neither foe nor loving
(16:23):
friend can hurt you. If all men matter to you
but not too much. If you can feel the everlasting
minute with sixty seconds of distance run, then yours is
the earth and everything that's in it. And what's more,
you'll be a man, my son and great job is
(16:46):
always by Greg Hangler bringing us the story and a
special thanks as always to the History Guy. History deserves
to be Remembered. That's where you can find him and
his work on the YouTube channel History Guy. History Deserves
to be Remembered. Just do that Google search and you'll
enjoy what you see. Poets Corner is remarkable all by
(17:07):
itself with memorials, but the very few who actually got
buried there include as was indicated not just Dickens and
Chaucer and Tennyson, but in the end Kipling too, joining
this August breed. And in addition there are memorials for
all Jane Austen and Blake the Poet, and Alden and
(17:27):
Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the list goes on and on.
There was something special about the British talent, the literature,
poetry and all else. It may be one of the
great special gifts that the British gave us was a
shared and common language, not just the laws, but the
(17:48):
common language. The story of Rudyard Kipling a story of
loss and tragedy and beauty. Here on our American story,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories, and up next
we're gonna have a little fun. If you're having a
rough day, this story is sure to make you smile.
Guide Dogs for the Blind is the largest guide dog
school in North America and the second largest in the world.
Christine Binninger, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind, is
(18:29):
here to share her stories about some possum friends and
all that they do. Please forgive me for all the
dog puns. Here's Christine with this beautiful story. Guide Dogs
for the Blind was founded in nineteen forty two to
serve individuals who were blinded during World War Two. The
(18:51):
very first founders of Guide Dogs for the Blind were
military dog trainers. They had the idea that dogs could
make a real difference in people's lives and helping them
negotiate life with more freedom and more independence. We breed
labs Golden Retrievers, and then we breed across between the two.
(19:13):
Dogs are individually just as different as people. So dog personalities, wants, needs,
the way they act. Each dog is unique, but that
works for us, and the reason is our clients are unique.
Part of the magic of Guide Dogs for the Blind
is the matching process and finding exactly the right match,
(19:35):
and that match is based on what your lifestyle is.
If you're somebody who works in downtown Manhattan and takes
a train and then a bus to get into your
office every day, you have to walk the streets of Manhattan,
that's a little bit of a different dog than you know,
if you're living in a suburb and you know, maybe
(19:56):
you're doing volunteer work every day, or you're meeting friends
for coffee. Different dogs like to work in different environments.
We match by personality. If you are somebody who's super
outgoing and really likes talking with people, we're going to
match you with a dog that's super outgoing and is
going to elicit that interaction for you. If you're somebody
(20:20):
who's a little more reserved and you know you just
want to get from point A to point B, you
really don't want to be talking with a lot of
people along the way, we're going to match you with
a dog that's a little more reserved and won't elicit
as much. We also make certain that we match our
clients preferences. We have clients that their visual impairment allows
(20:43):
them to see dark colors, so we'll match them with
a black lab or allows them to see lighter colors,
so we'll match them with a yellow lab or a
golden retriever. The matching process is complicated, as you can
well imagine. You've got a lot of different traits that
we have to match for the person and you know
dogs each have their different traits as well, and that's
(21:04):
why I say there's always a bit of magic and
every single match that's made. We were the first service
dog organization ever to employ positive reinforcement training methods. Traditional
training methods basically set a dog up to fail and
then you punish them for failure, with the theory being
(21:26):
that the dog remembers that and doesn't want to be
punished again. Positive reinforcement training is setting the dog up
for success and rewarding them for success. It feels a
lot better to be set up for success and being
rewarded for that versus being set up for failure. It's
made a huge difference for our dogs. So the interesting
(21:47):
thing is that the skills of a dog trained with
essentially punishment based training versus positive reinforcement training, their skills
are just as good. The difference is the excitement out working.
So a punishment based dog who's been trained in that
methodology isn't excited about going to work because what they're
(22:10):
thinking is that, oh my god, if I get something wrong,
I'm going to be punished. Dogs that are trained with
a positive reinforcement methodology are so excited to work. It's like,
oh my god, the harness is out. Yes, yes, yes,
let's go. And honestly, that makes a huge difference and
it makes you feel better too. The other interesting thing
(22:32):
is that when we were using punishment based training, it
took us twenty four weeks to train a guide dog
in their skills. Positive reinforcement training. It now takes us
twelve weeks. So you can see there's so many benefits
to it, not only from the psychological aspects to the dogs,
but they learn much faster and that allows us to
(22:54):
be able to train more guide dogs and train more clients.
People have to really commit to the guide dog lifestyle.
In order for a guide dog to be successful, you
have to get them onto a routine. Guide dogs are
trained not to relieve themselves and harness, so we all
need bathroom breaks, right. You need to make certain that
(23:16):
you're consistently feeding at the same times that you're consistently
relieving at the same times you have to take your
dog to the vet. I mean so, even the way
that we interface with our clients is all unique. We
don't charge for any of our services. We fly people
out to our campuses, they live with us for two
(23:37):
weeks and train with their dogs. We fly them home,
and then we continue to follow up with our clients
to make sure that things are working well. And in
addition to that, we also pay for all the veterinary
costs over the dog's lifetime, to make certain that no
one is put in a position of saying do I
(23:57):
pay my rent or do I take my dog to
the vet. Our dogs are trained athletes have to be
kept in peak condition, so we want to always make
certain that our guide dogs have the best medical care.
And all of our work is supported through donation. It's
a huge community that supports guide dogs for the blind.
(24:19):
We have approximately three hundred staff members and over four
thousand volunteers, so we actually start training our dogs at
three days of age. We have a whole group of
volunteers called cuddlers who start cuddling our babies, and that's
literally what they do. They cuddle them so that these
(24:41):
babies become used to people, become used to human touch.
And there's nothing scary about a person starting very early
on with very gentle, loving touch, which the puppies react
to obviously in a positive way. It says a lot
about our breeders. A brand new mama allowing somebody to
(25:03):
sit with her babies and hold her babies at three
days of age is pretty remarkable. Our clients range an
age from fourteen to ninety four. What the qualifications are
for getting a guide dog are that you are legally blind,
that you have a need to go somewhere every day.
(25:25):
That doesn't mean that you have to have a job.
You know something every day at a minimum, I get
out and I go for a walk. And the reason
for that is that the team needs to work together
every day. Otherwise you, as a handler lose your skills
or the guide dog loses their skills. In order to
keep that team working seamlessly together, you've got to get
(25:45):
out and work every day. The third requirement is that
you already have the orientation of mobility skills. Guide dogs
are not GPS systems. You can't just say to your
guide dog, take me to the nearest Starbucks. You have
to know essentially where that Starbucks is, and then you
(26:06):
need to give your dog the commands for how to
get there and your dog will get you there safely.
And the fourth requirement is that you are living somewhere
that will support a guide dog. Oftentimes, particularly in rural environments,
there are a lot of awfullysh aggressive dogs. If a
(26:26):
guide dog feels that they're going to be attacked every
time that they walk out their door, typically then they're
going to stop working. So if people meet those four criteria,
then we bring them into our school and they get
a guide dog. Nearly sixteen thousand teams have graduated since
our founding. Very proud of that. And you've been listening
(26:49):
to Christine Benninger, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind,
and my goodness, what a scaled operation she's running. And
it's at the behest of so many donors who want
to see this happened. When we come back more of
this great American story of Guide Dogs for the Blind,
and so much more. By the way, that whole cuddling
thing sounds like we could all use such an endeavor
(27:11):
or such a week when we come back more of
this great story here on our American story, and we
(27:38):
return to our American stories and to Christine Binninger's story,
the CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Here's Christine
to talk about the dogs and all that goes into
the unique training for these very special animals. When you
look at service dogs and all the different things that
(27:58):
service dogs do, GI'D work is the most complicated for
two reasons. One is that guide dogs have to get
everything right one hundred percent of the time. They can't
just walk their person into traffic once, or they can't
walk you into a light pole once, So guide dogs
(28:18):
get no second chances. They've got to do it right. Secondly,
they have to evaluate whether the command they're given is
going to keep the team safe or not. And if
the guide dog believes it won't keep the team safe,
it'll have to disobey the command and do exactly the opposite.
Now that's even tough for humans. I don't know how
(28:40):
often you say no to your boss, but that's a
hard thing to do, and dogs leave in a hierarchy,
so basically saying no to their boss. It takes a
special dog to be able to do that. If a
dog is given a command to cross the street and
that handler is not hearing the electric car that's coming
(29:02):
around the corner, the dog has to pull their handler
away from the street rather than walking into the street.
So that's an example of what we call intelligent disobedience.
Guide dogs are trained to do all kinds of things.
When you walk into a room, or you walk onto
a bus, they are trained to find you an open seat,
(29:24):
so they'll take you to the first available open seat.
Many of our clients train their dogs for very specific things.
Like we have a client she said, wherever I go,
I've always got my water bottle with me, and so
I'm always looking for recycling bins. So she's trained her
guide dog when she needs to to find a recycling
(29:46):
bin so that she can get rid of her water bottle.
You can train your dog to take you to Starbucks.
Once your dog knows where Starbucks is and that's where
you go on a regular basis, you can just say,
take me to Starbucks. All kinds of things like that.
What I'll call the magic of guide dogs is that
the team becomes so close because the team is together
(30:10):
twenty four seven and relies on each other. Our guide
dogs are not trained in being able to sense medical
changes in our clients. Somehow they get to know their
person well enough that they do. This happened about two
years ago. We have a client that does work in Manhattan.
(30:32):
She works in one of those buildings that is like
a gazillion floors, and so you have to take a
very specific elevator to your bank of floors, and so
her guide dog knows exactly which elevator to go to.
And one particular day, her guide dog didn't take her
to the bank of elevators, but took her to a
(30:53):
group of couches that were sort of off the lobby.
And when she got to the group of couches, she
realized she wasn't feeling very well. She sat down and
had a stroke. So did her guide dog. I cry sorry.
Did her guide dog know that she was going to
(31:14):
have a stroke? No, but the guide dog knew something
was wrong. What our guide dogs do is take care
of their people. So the guide dog knew getting in
that elevator probably wasn't the best thing to do. Getting
her to a safer spots was the best thing to do.
Those kinds of stories happen all the time, not through training,
(31:38):
but through that relationship that grows between a guide dog
and their person. What I find really remarkable about our
clients is the different types of things that people do.
Our clients are mothers raising three children. We have people
(32:01):
who are businesspeople. We have people who are chefs, who
are musicians, who are teachers. We actually have a couple
of clients that have just competed in the Paralympics over
in Japan. What a guide dog does is give people
confidence to be able to do what they want to
do in life, and so as a result, you see
(32:24):
these just remarkable things that our clients do. We have
a client that he's a professional hiker. He's hiked with
his guide dog the Pacific Crest Trail, He's hiked the
Appalachian Trail. I mean, he's hiked all over the world,
and he does that as someone who's blind with a
(32:45):
guide dog out for days and days and days by himself.
All of that, in my mind, is truly remarkable. Guide
Dogs for the Blind has made a concerted effort to
target youth. Kids have a tendency to not want to
(33:05):
be sort of called out as different, right, and so
much of who we become as adults is based on
what we experience as young person. So canine buddies they're
not guide dogs, that they are companion dogs, well trained
companion dogs for individuals who are too young yet to
(33:26):
get a guide dog. We do have a lower age limit,
but we don't have an upper age limit. We're giving
canine buddies to families with children as young as five.
And what a canine buddy does is not only start
to orient kids around dogs, but most importantly is building
(33:47):
their confidence. You know, hearing from parents about how you
know they're five year old, was not making friends in school,
afraid to dress themselves, wouldn't go to the bathroom on
their own own, Mommy had to be there. And once
they had a canine buddy, all of a sudden, wanting
to be independent, getting dressed on their own, starting to
(34:08):
make friends. They're the kind of coolest kid on the
block with this really neat dog. Some kids have night terrors.
With a canine buddy, those night terrors go away. So
canine buddies, while they're not specifically service dogs, make a
huge difference in the life of very young children. Then
(34:29):
we have a whole host of programs that are targeted
towards high school kids. That's a very sort of vulnerable time, right,
wasn't my best years if I think about high school.
So we have things like what we call GDB Camp
for high school kids to get together with other kids
(34:51):
with similar disabilities. They actually have the opportunity to work
with a guide dog, sleep with a guide dog overnight,
plus just have a great time just being campers, just
being kids. We fly kids in from all over North
America and there's all kinds of fun things to do,
you know, tandem bike riding, canoeing, swimming. This last year,
(35:15):
we actually had the kids visit a llama farm and
have the opportunity to walk allama. They all agreed that
walking a guide dog was a lot easier than walking
a llama. Oftentimes, kids that have a visual disability don't
know anybody else who does, so lifelong friendships are made.
(35:37):
It's a great place, it's fun place. We've grown from
a very small, fledgling organization to really, you know, the
largest guide school in North America. That's not easy. So
I'm very grateful to my counterparts who were a part
of this organization and set the stage for who we
(35:59):
are today. Because of their efforts, we've been able to grow,
We've been able to fund ourselves and really become the
leader in the guide dog industry. It's a huge community
that supports our work. I've always been inspired by the
difference that animals make in our lives. It's really an
(36:20):
honor to be a part of this organization because this
is an organization that saves lives. It gives people their
independence and allows people to live the life that they
want to live. And I can't think of anything more
inspirational than that and a great job is always on
(36:42):
the production and the storytelling by Madison and special thanks
to Christine Benninger, the CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind.
To learn more and to help support their mission, go
to Guideedogs dot com. By the way, this is just
a perfect example of American generosity at work. He's working
at a nonprofit. People are donating money, people are volunteering,
(37:02):
they're cuddling with dogs. All of these things they're doing
to help a stranger's life just move along a little better.
And my goodness, what she said about what the dog's
mission was what our guide dogs do is take care
of their people, and they do it not through the
mere training, but through the strong relationship they build with
(37:23):
their client. And anyone who has an animal knows what
that relationship means. And a special thanks to all the
people who support this great organization. Again, go to guide
Dogs dot com if you love the mission and go
ahead and help them do what they do. The story
of Christine Benenger, the story of Guide Dogs for the Blind,
and the story in the end of the generosity of
(37:45):
the American people. Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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