When I was six years old the doctor gave me my first pair of glasses. They were round, thick, and made my face look like a pumpkin. My vision has been worsening ever since. My last doctor’s appointment, I was told that I have a chance of my retina completely detaching...after he did the examination for my potential premature glaucoma. Blindness in my left eye seems almost inevitable. However, I am not afraid. My family started raising guide dogs when I was ten. Something that was always talked about in the GDB community was bond. Many raisers discussed the theory that the dogs only bond with whoever has the food bowl, while others thought that the dogs have a special ability to deeply bond with their blind person. Guide dogs for the blind and …show more content…
Harlan, my first dog, is now a guide for a professor at the University of Washington. Something peculiar happened with Harlan. While living with us, he was very depressed and was quite Eeyore-like. However, we discovered at his graduation that he had become deeply attached to the head mobility trainer. At GDB the trainers are allowed to take one dog with them when they retire. The head trainer was going to retire early so that he could keep Harlan. During his graduation ceremony, Harlan followed the man wherever he walked. Gazed at him, actually. Although his blind owner was dependent upon him and deeply attached, Harlan did not seem to care. He wanted his trainer. Harlan was so bonded with the trainer that he almost seemed to neglect his duties as a guide. Another one of my guide dogs, Zorro, graduated with a lady who is married to the producer of Shark Week. They traveled all throughout Europe together, trying to get the service animal portion of those countries’ disability acts revised for the public use of service animals. Zorro eventually got into a fight with a pit bull in Switzerland. The trainers theorized that the fight was because of his over-protectiveness of his owner. He did not have a home or a place to protect, so his owner became his property. Zorro now lives with my family, and seems to be the happiest he has ever been. He has become very attached to my littlest sister, Ivy. He wakes up in the morning when she wakes up, and only goes to bed when she is resting. From my own personal accounts of guide dogs, I can honestly say that I believe guide dogs are capable of bonding with multiple owners, but on different levels. Susan Krieger, Fresco’s proud owner and professor of women’s gender and sexuality studies at Stanford, has written many novels about traveling blind with her dog by her side. Her most recent novel Come, Let Me Guide You she describes her dogs as
It can be a companion, an aide, or both. Pet dogs are loyal and make wonderful company, and an emotional support dog creates bountiful joy, but a service dog is much more. A service dog not only serves the same role as a pet, but creates a safer environment for its owner. Without the service dog it would be much harder for the owner to get around on a daily basis indecently. However service dogs and their owners are discriminated against because people are skeptical of the dog’s legitimacy, but instead the service dogs and their owners should be respected and treated as
Imagine this, you are in a mall and a dog wearing a vest comes prancing in with its owner. What would you think? How would you react? Is it trained? Why does the owner bring in his/her dog to a store? Chances are, this is a service dog. Service dogs are used to help people with mental health issues, physical health issues, and social issues. Why do we need service dogs? The people could just go to therapy right? Well, wrong. Service dogs go through extensive training, to ensure they will be able to allow socially inept people to find a place in society, even though there may be some alternatives to their job. Together, let’s explore the ways that a service dog can help people function in society.
Almost all the families that own dogs treat them like a part of the family. In the story How the Dog Became Part of the Family, it stated "According to a 2015 survey by the Harris Poll, ninety six percent of owners consider their dogs to be a part of the family." Since the dogs get special treatment from their owners they will do things for them, like encroachment foxes, clean out rats from somewhere, hunt ducks, and also even pull sleds on snowy days. Dogs can be malign gard dogs for people that treat them like kinfolks. The dogs and humans can have a very special bond. "When a dog and a human gaze in each others eye a chemical is released that causes the dog and human to feel adjacent." For example, in the story How the Dog Became Part of the Family, it states that, "The Harris Poll found that 38 percent of U.S. dog owners cook special meals for their dogs," Another thing is walking a dog a lot can improve people's health and can cause less accentuation. Less accentuation causes a better day and it is helpful to kids with autism. When dos get walked it makes you and the dog feel
Service dogs are selected and trained by organizations such as Canine Companions for Independence. These organizations choose potential service dogs by looking at a dog’s ancestral history. The health history of the dog is reviewed along with the health history of the dog’s parents. Sometimes dogs are bred to be service dogs. They can even be bred to be smaller or bigger depending on the tasks that may need to be completed . The cost of selecting and training dogs to become a servi...
Beverly Kramer has been raising Leader Dogs for 20 years now. In 1998 at her towns, local Chamber of Commerce annual dinner visually impaired women and her Leader Dog came to give the keynote speech about the work done at Leader Dogs. Beverly husband was the president of the Chamber of Commerce and had the responsibility of hosting the keynote speaker. “It was amazing to hear this woman’s story, I learned so much from her. She told me all about the puppy raising program,” Says Beverly.
1.Zak George’s Dog Training Revolution: The Complete Guide to raising the perfect pet with love
They are a part of many organizations to serve and help people in various amounts of ways. Dogs provide assistance in law enforcement, work as service dogs, are therapeutic, psychological role, etc. For example, the Pit Bull Rescue Central mentions, “Pit bulls still loyally serve society in many roles: search and rescue, therapy dogs visiting hospitals and senior communities, working in law enforcement as narcotics and bomb detection dogs, educational dogs teaching children about canine safety, and service dogs.” This illustrates that dogs are a huge part of our society and make our lives easier in one way or another. Many nursing homes and hospitals use different dog breeds including pit bulls to make their patients feel comfortable and to provide affection as well. For instance, the European Pet Food Industry states, “Pet animals are used for therapeutic reasons in hospitals and nursing homes where the benefits are increasingly being recognized... Perhaps of all these positive effects on the well-being of a human patient, the most dramatic is that of a dog or a cat in the non- communicative clinically depressed patient whose withdrawal can be gently alleviated by the introduction of the pet. Such practices and their psychological benefits have received endorsement from the medical profession.” This reveals that pit bulls and other breeds are to not be discriminated against anywhere at any
The use of therapeutic dogs in nursing homes and other care or incarceration facilities is necessary in today’s world of young people, geriatric patients, and the mentally ill who exhibit various behavior and emotional problems. Dogs bring emotional support and open avenues of expression for segments of society that find it difficult to experience that support or to express otherwise.
Throughout the ages of time, man has called his own dog one of his dearest companions. Wilson Rawls unveils that the influence of a dog is capable of producing an effect on the behavior of others. Dogs will accept their owner without question “… I so desperately wanted to see them and hold them” (Rawls 27). Dogs will never disapprove others, be prejudice, racist, betray, criminal personalities, and maim each other. Dogs are very loyal and will protect their owner with everything they have. That is why a friendship with a dog is incomparable to anything else, disclosing to the reader the importance of such a friend. “I looked at his grave and, with tears in my eyes, I voiced these words: “You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over” (Rawls 235).
Dogs make great companions, can be an assistance dogs and help people with disabilities, and even protect a household. Hearing dogs can be the ears for a person that is hard of hearing, seeing dogs can be the eyes for someone who is legally blind, and service dogs can be an alert system for someone with epilepsy. Although, these dogs are put through a lot of special training for a specific need. More often than not, an assistance dog is adopted but also donated to someone who is handicap. Since a landlord is unable to refuse a house or apartment to someone with an assistance dog, and they are allowed everywhere it is less likely for them to become an inconvenience.
"Honey," my mom yelled to me one sunny afternoon, "Go out and feed Sugar." Sugar was our dog, a big, husky lap dog. I went to our kitchen, and got some food. Then I stepped outside, into the warm, fresh August air, looking for Sugar. I glanced to where I kept Sugar, and couldn't believe my eyes. Sugar was not there. I ran to the place where Sugar slept, I saw that the leash was elegantly coiled up. I knew that Sugar could not have run away. I thought that she must have chased a deer or another animal. Then a disturbing thought hit me, Sugar might have been abducted. As I tried to push that thought out of my mind, I thought that my mom could have put Sugar out in the garage. I went to the garage to check, but unfortunately Sugar wasn?t there. ?Mom,? I cried after a couple of seconds, ?Do you know where Sugar is??
As a kid, I fell in love with the idea of getting a puppy for Christmas. Wrapped in a small box with a bow on top sitting under the tree just like the movies and tv shows I had seen. I can remember making a Christmas list of all the things I wanted that year, and every year the same thing that I wanted had said “puppy” with it underlined so that my mother knew which was my favorite on the list. Every year no surprise, I didn’t find a dog. I never understood why I never received one. When the kids at school talked about the few dogs they had at home made me so jealous, but I hoped that one day it would be me to have my own best friend at home.
Armbruster, K. (2002). “Good Dog”: The stories we tell about our canine companions and what they mean for humans and other animals, 38 (4), 351, 26. Retrieved from http://www.siue.edu/PLL/
Pit-bulls provide immense support for many mentally, physically disabled adults and children including the hearing and visually impaired. The beauty of the companion’s affection has been incorporated into a successful non-profit organization called Soldiers Best Friend which provides aid for qualified disabled veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injuries. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder affects many aspects of a person’s life, for instance, these veterans have difficulty being in large crowds or hearing loud noises. However, by introducing a professionally trained Pit-Bull has proven to improve the soldiers ability to live within society, to become less of a recluse, more social able, and gives comfort for the emotionally damaged veteran in high stress situations, such as, going to a sporting event or using public transportation (Martinez 4). While individuals receive a substantial amount of emotional help from these loving animals, others live in fear that this specific breed of dog, Pit-b...
Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted a dog. Never did I think that dogs would end up being by biggest fear. I was just a little kid around 6 years old when it happened. I was walking home from my friend’s house when I saw a stray dog, it was in the middle of the street blocking my way, I decided to walk past it, while I was walking it started growling at me, I hesitated but still kept trying to walk then suddenly it got up and started barking empathically towards me. I was terrified, my first initial reaction being a 6 year old kid was to scare it away, I was ignorant. I picked up a rock and threw it at the dog thinking it’ll get scared and run away. I was wrong. The dog had enough it made a whimpering noise then started barking even louder