The Seeing Eye Service (guidedogs.org.uk)

Member Name: robinlawrie

Product:	guidedogs.org.uk
Date:	08/09/01 (122 review reads)
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“A guide dog is almost equal in many ways to giving a blind man sight itself.” This was said by Musgrave Frankland, who was one of the first people to train with a guide dog in Britain.

The majority of us tend to take sight for granted, but for over 200,000 who are blind or visually impaired, getting around in a dark world is an everyday reality. The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association is determined to ease the burden for these people and needs our help now more than ever. The Guide Dogs service requires nearly £45 million a year to continue its work. It receives no statutory or government funding, and will need to increase its voluntary income by £5 million annually by 2004. Since 1992, their services have cost them more than their annual income.

Let me give you first a little of the history of the service.

The guide dog story starts in Germany during the 1914-18 war when dogs were trained to lead soldiers who had been blinded. The Seeing Eye organisation in Switzerland and America was founded in 1927, and the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association was founded in Britain in1934. Initially it consisted of two women, Muriel Crooke and Rosumund Bond, and four dogs. The training was done from a lock up garage in Wallasey, Cheshire. From these humble beginnings, started an organisation that now breeds over 1000 guide dog puppies annually, employs over 1,200 staff in eighteen centres across the UK, and is supported by thousands of volunteers, which include 400 brood-stock holders, almost 1000 puppy walkers and an army of local branch fundraisers. The organisation is now the world leader in the breeding and the training of guide dogs.

Some facts for you to digest:

•It costs £35,000 to breed, train and support a guide dog.
•There are currently almost 5000 guide dogs working in the UK.
•The working life of a guide dog is 7 years.
•A blind person could have 6 or
7 dogs during their lifetime.
•The organisation funds the guide dog’s food bills and any veterinary care.
•They always place and maintain retired guide dogs with voluntary "adopters".
•They are the UK’s largest single provider of funds for research into canine health issues.
•They have made grants totalling £7 million, which supports human ophthalmic research, and they will have contributed a further £5 million by 2005.
•They have 400 voluntary fundraising branches, which raises over £6 million annually.

The web site at www.guidedogs.org.uk is well worth a visit, and could be your first step to helping. You will find it slightly different from most other web sites, as it caters for the visually impaired in addition to those with normal sight. You are given the option to view in “sight map” or in text only. This is in large print, and you can customise the size and colour of the font to your requirements.

There is a shop, and once again it is with a difference. Catalogues or as they prefer to call them “Dogalogues” can be ordered in the normal format, in Braille or as an audiotape.

Details of how to donate are here, and you can help by contributing directly, or joining one of the many local fundraising branches. Details are online of current fundraising and challenge events. What is the possibility of your company helping?

Become a Puppy Walker.

•Can you drive or have access to a car during the daytime?
•Do you have a securely fenced garden and are at home for most of the day?
•Are you free to take your puppy into many varied environments - sometimes busy and difficult?

If you answered yes, then here is how you can become a puppy walker!

Puppy walkers are volunteers who assist in the care and education of guide dog puppies at the age of six weeks until they are a yea
r old. They then begin their training at centres based around the country. The object of the exercise is to get the puppies used to a home environment with all the noise and the bustle this entails. It is so rewarding to look after a puppy that will one day act as someone's eyes. All expenses and equipment are paid for, and you will receive updates on the puppy’s progress to becoming a fully-fledged guide dog.

Take a look at this worthwhile site and see if you can help in some way. It will only take a minute or two and you may find some way in which you can help this marvellous organisation.

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