July 18, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, guide dogs do more than navigate curbs and crosswalks. They offer confidence, companionship, and a new kind of freedom. Christine Benninger, CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind, explains how these remarkable dogs are trained, selected, and paired with individuals who need them the most.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And we continue with our American stories and up next
we're going to 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
(00:32):
here to share her stories about some powesome friends and
all that they do. Please forgive me for all the
dog puns. Here's Christine with this beautiful story.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Guide Dogs for the Blind was founded in nineteen forty
two to serve individuals who were blinded during.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
The 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
(01:14):
the two. Dogs are individually just as different as people,
so dog personalities, wants, needs, the way they act.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Each dog is unique.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
But that works for us, and the reason is our
clients are unique.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Part of the magic of Guide Dogs for the Blind is.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The matching process and finding exactly the right match, and
that match is based on what your lifestyle is.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
If you're somebody who works.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
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.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
If you're living in a suburb.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And you know, maybe 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.
(02:21):
If you're somebody 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
(02:43):
visual impairment allows 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,
(03:03):
and you know dogs each have their different traits as well,
and that's 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
(03:24):
and then you punish them for failure, with the theory
being 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.
(03:46):
It's made a huge difference for our dogs. So the
interesting 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
about working, so a punishment based dog who's been trained
(04:07):
in that methodology isn't excited about going to work because
what they're thinking is that, oh my god, if I
get something wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'm going to be punished.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Dogs that are trained with a positive reinforcement methodology are
so excited to work.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It's like, oh my god, the harness is out, Yes, yes,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And honestly, that makes a huge difference and it makes
you feel better too. The other interesting thing 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
(04:47):
you can see there's so many benefits to it, not
only from the psychological.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Aspects to the dogs, but they.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Learn much faster and that allows us to 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
(05:15):
bathroom breaks, right.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You need to make certain that.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
We don't charge for any of our services.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
We fly people out to our campuses, they live with
us for two weeks and train.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
With their dogs. We fly them.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
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 pay my rent or do I take my dog
(06:02):
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 Guy Dogs for the Blind.
We have approximately three hundred staff members and over four
(06:25):
thousand volunteers, so we actually start training our dogs at.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Three days of age.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
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 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,
(06:55):
which the puppies react.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
To obviously in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
There's a lot about our breeders. A brand new mama
allowing somebody to sit with her babies and hold her
babies at three days of age.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Our clients range in age from fourteen to ninety four.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
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 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 out and
(07:48):
work every day.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
The third requirement.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Is that you already have the orientation and mobility skills.
Guide dogs are not GPS systems.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You can just say to.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Your guide dog, take me to the nearest Starbucks. You
have to know essentially where that Starbucks is, and then
you 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,
(08:25):
there are a lot of off leash aggressive dogs.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
If a guide dog feels that they're.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And you've been listening to Christine Benninger, THEEO of Guide
Dogs for the Blind, and my goodness, what a scaled
operation she's running. And it's that the behest of so
many donors who want to see this happen. 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
(09:12):
such an endeavor such a week when we come back
more of this great story here on our American story
(09:44):
and we return to our American stories and to Christine
Benninger'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.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
When you look at service dogs and all the different
things that service dogs do, guide 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
(10:19):
they can't walk you into a light pole once, so
guide dogs get.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
No second chances. They've got to do it right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Now that's even tough for humans. I don't know how often.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
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 around
(11:06):
the corner. The dog has to pull their handler away
from the street rather than walking into the street.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So that's an.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Example of what we call intelligent disobedience.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Guide dogs are trained to do all kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
When you walk into a room, or you walk onto
a bus, they are trained to find you an open seat,
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, you know, my water bottle with me,
(11:43):
and so I'm always looking for recycling bins. So she's
trained her guide dog when she needs to to find
a recycling bin so that she can get rid of
her water bottle.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
You can train your dog to take you to Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Once your dog knows where Starbucks is and that's where
you go on a rag basis, you can just say,
take me to Starbucks.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
All kinds of things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
What I'll call the magic of guide dogs is that
the team becomes so close because the team is together
twenty four to 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
(12:27):
their person well enough that they do This happened about
two years ago. We have a client that does work
in Manhattan. 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
(12:49):
go to.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
And one particular day.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Her guide dog didn't take her to the bank of elevators,
but took her to a 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
(13:12):
guide dog, I cry sorry. Did her guide dog know
that she was going to 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 spot
(13:35):
was the best thing to do. Those kinds of stories
happen all the time, not through training, but through that
relationship that grows between a guide dog.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And their person.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What I find really remarkable about our clients is the
different types of things that people do. Our clients are
mothers raising three children.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
We have people who are business people. We have people
who are chefs, who are musicians, who are teachers.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
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 these just remarkable things.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
That our clients do.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
We have a client that's 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 guide dog out for days and days and
(14:53):
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 be sort of called out as different, right,
(15:13):
and so much of who we become as adults is
based on what we experience as young person.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So canine buddies.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
They're not guide dogs that they are companion dogs, well
trained companion dogs for individuals who are too young yet
to 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
(15:46):
only start to orient kids around dogs, but most importantly
is building their confidence. You know, hearing from parents about
how you know their five year old was not making
friends and school, afraid to dress themselves, wouldn't go to
the bathroom on their own, Mommy had to be there.
(16:06):
And once they had a canine buddy, all of a sudden,
wanting to be independent, getting dressed on their own, starting
to 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
(16:29):
a huge difference in the life of very young children.
Then 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.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So we have things like what we call GDB Camp.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
For high school kids to get together with other kids
with similar disabilities.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
They actually have.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
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.
(17:19):
This last year we actually had the kids visit a
lama farm and have the opportunity to walk a llama.
They all agreed that walking a guide dog was a
lot easier.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Than walking a lama.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Oftentimes, kids that have a visual disability don't know anybody
else who does, so lifelong friendships are made.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's a great place, it's fun place.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
We've grown from a very small, fledgling organization to really,
you know, the largest guide school in North America.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
That's not easy.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So I'm very grateful to my counterparts who were part
of this organization and set the stage for who we
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.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
That animals make in our lives.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
It's really an 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.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
The life that they want to live. And I can't
think of anything more inspirational than that.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And a great job is always on the production and
the storytelling by Madison and special thanks to Christine Beninger,
the CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind. To learn
more and to help support their mission, go to guidedogs
dot com. And by the way, this is just a
perfect exact example of American generosity at work. He's working
at a nonprofit. People are donating money, people are volunteering,
(19:06):
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
(19:28):
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 guiddogs
dot com if you love the mission and go ahead
and help them.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Do what they do.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
The story of Christine Beninger, the story of Guide Dogs
for the Blind, and the story in the end of
the generosity of the American people.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Here on our American stories, the
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Different
And we continue with our American stories and up next
we're going to 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
(00:32):
here to share her stories about some powesome friends and
all that they do. Please forgive me for all the
dog puns. Here's Christine with this beautiful story.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Guide Dogs for the Blind was founded in nineteen forty
two to serve individuals who were blinded during.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
The 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
(01:14):
the two. Dogs are individually just as different as people,
so dog personalities, wants, needs, the way they act.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Each dog is unique.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
But that works for us, and the reason is our
clients are unique.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Part of the magic of Guide Dogs for the Blind is.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The matching process and finding exactly the right match, and
that match is based on what your lifestyle is.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
If you're somebody who works.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
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.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
If you're living in a suburb.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And you know, maybe 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.
(02:21):
If you're somebody 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
(02:43):
visual impairment allows 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,
(03:03):
and you know dogs each have their different traits as well,
and that's 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
(03:24):
and then you punish them for failure, with the theory
being 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.
(03:46):
It's made a huge difference for our dogs. So the
interesting 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
about working, so a punishment based dog who's been trained
(04:07):
in that methodology isn't excited about going to work because
what they're thinking is that, oh my god, if I
get something wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'm going to be punished.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Dogs that are trained with a positive reinforcement methodology are
so excited to work.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It's like, oh my god, the harness is out, Yes, yes,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And honestly, that makes a huge difference and it makes
you feel better too. The other interesting thing 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
(04:47):
you can see there's so many benefits to it, not
only from the psychological.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Aspects to the dogs, but they.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Learn much faster and that allows us to 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
(05:15):
bathroom breaks, right.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You need to make certain that.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
We don't charge for any of our services.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
We fly people out to our campuses, they live with
us for two weeks and train.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
With their dogs. We fly them.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
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 pay my rent or do I take my dog
(06:02):
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 Guy Dogs for the Blind.
We have approximately three hundred staff members and over four
(06:25):
thousand volunteers, so we actually start training our dogs at.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Three days of age.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
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 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,
(06:55):
which the puppies react.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
To obviously in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
There's a lot about our breeders. A brand new mama
allowing somebody to sit with her babies and hold her
babies at three days of age.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Our clients range in age from fourteen to ninety four.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
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 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 out and
(07:48):
work every day.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
The third requirement.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Is that you already have the orientation and mobility skills.
Guide dogs are not GPS systems.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You can just say to.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Your guide dog, take me to the nearest Starbucks. You
have to know essentially where that Starbucks is, and then
you 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,
(08:25):
there are a lot of off leash aggressive dogs.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
If a guide dog feels that they're.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And you've been listening to Christine Benninger, THEEO of Guide
Dogs for the Blind, and my goodness, what a scaled
operation she's running. And it's that the behest of so
many donors who want to see this happen. 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
(09:12):
such an endeavor such a week when we come back
more of this great story here on our American story
(09:44):
and we return to our American stories and to Christine
Benninger'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.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
When you look at service dogs and all the different
things that service dogs do, guide 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
(10:19):
they can't walk you into a light pole once, so
guide dogs get.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
No second chances. They've got to do it right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Now that's even tough for humans. I don't know how often.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
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 around
(11:06):
the corner. The dog has to pull their handler away
from the street rather than walking into the street.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So that's an.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Example of what we call intelligent disobedience.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Guide dogs are trained to do all kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
When you walk into a room, or you walk onto
a bus, they are trained to find you an open seat,
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, you know, my water bottle with me,
(11:43):
and so I'm always looking for recycling bins. So she's
trained her guide dog when she needs to to find
a recycling bin so that she can get rid of
her water bottle.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
You can train your dog to take you to Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Once your dog knows where Starbucks is and that's where
you go on a rag basis, you can just say,
take me to Starbucks.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
All kinds of things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
What I'll call the magic of guide dogs is that
the team becomes so close because the team is together
twenty four to 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
(12:27):
their person well enough that they do This happened about
two years ago. We have a client that does work
in Manhattan. 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
(12:49):
go to.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
And one particular day.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Her guide dog didn't take her to the bank of elevators,
but took her to a 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
(13:12):
guide dog, I cry sorry. Did her guide dog know
that she was going to 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 spot
(13:35):
was the best thing to do. Those kinds of stories
happen all the time, not through training, but through that
relationship that grows between a guide dog.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And their person.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What I find really remarkable about our clients is the
different types of things that people do. Our clients are
mothers raising three children.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
We have people who are business people. We have people
who are chefs, who are musicians, who are teachers.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
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 these just remarkable things.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
That our clients do.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
We have a client that's 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 guide dog out for days and days and
(14:53):
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 be sort of called out as different, right,
(15:13):
and so much of who we become as adults is
based on what we experience as young person.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So canine buddies.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
They're not guide dogs that they are companion dogs, well
trained companion dogs for individuals who are too young yet
to 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
(15:46):
only start to orient kids around dogs, but most importantly
is building their confidence. You know, hearing from parents about
how you know their five year old was not making
friends and school, afraid to dress themselves, wouldn't go to
the bathroom on their own, Mommy had to be there.
(16:06):
And once they had a canine buddy, all of a sudden,
wanting to be independent, getting dressed on their own, starting
to 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
(16:29):
a huge difference in the life of very young children.
Then 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.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So we have things like what we call GDB Camp.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
For high school kids to get together with other kids
with similar disabilities.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
They actually have.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
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.
(17:19):
This last year we actually had the kids visit a
lama farm and have the opportunity to walk a llama.
They all agreed that walking a guide dog was a
lot easier.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Than walking a lama.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Oftentimes, kids that have a visual disability don't know anybody
else who does, so lifelong friendships are made.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's a great place, it's fun place.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
We've grown from a very small, fledgling organization to really,
you know, the largest guide school in North America.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
That's not easy.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So I'm very grateful to my counterparts who were part
of this organization and set the stage for who we
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.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
That animals make in our lives.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
It's really an 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.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
The life that they want to live. And I can't
think of anything more inspirational than that.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And a great job is always on the production and
the storytelling by Madison and special thanks to Christine Beninger,
the CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind. To learn
more and to help support their mission, go to guidedogs
dot com. And by the way, this is just a
perfect exact example of American generosity at work. He's working
at a nonprofit. People are donating money, people are volunteering,
(19:06):
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
(19:28):
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 guiddogs
dot com if you love the mission and go ahead
and help them.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Do what they do.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
The story of Christine Beninger, the story of Guide Dogs
for the Blind, and the story in the end of
the generosity of the American people.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Here on our American stories, the
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Different
Host
Lee Habeeb
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