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In her shoes: Resident recounts experience with The Seeing Eye
Photo courtesy Michelle Barlak: Chelsea White, stands with her new dog from The Seeing Eye, Inc.
By Elizabeth Knighten, eknighten@acnpapers.com
Frisco resident Chelsea White knows a thing or two about working dogs. She has had four -- German Shepherds, to be exact -- since she was 16-years-old, and has worked with them through The Seeing Eye program.
White said she was diagnosed with Leber's Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) when she was a child.
"I've lost vision gradually since birth, and I was diagnosed with having a visual impairment when I was about 6 months old, and then I was actually diagnosed with my eye condition when I was about 7," White said. "Until high school, I had some pretty decent usable vision; I could read large print and see obstacles and things like that."
"Most of the time when I talk about public awareness, I talk to kids and schools," White said. White, who said she travels the country quite often with her working dog, recently received her fourth dog from The Seeing Eye in November.
Michelle Barlak, senior associate of public relations for The Seeing Eye, said the organization has partnered 15,500 visually impaired people with a working dog since 1929, when it was originally founded in Tennessee.
"That's how many matches we've made," Barlak said, adding the number accounts for some of the people who may be coming back for a second or a third dog after their dog retires.
She also said that the New Jersey based program embraces students of all backgrounds -- as some have never even touched a dog before.
"We call them 'students' when they come here to get a dog, and we teach the students everything they need to know to be able to take care of their dog," Barlak said. "We really need to teach them everything: how to groom the dog, how to pick up after the dog, everything, how to feed the dog and then we'll have people come in that are really dog savvy or that have had seeing eye dogs before."
Thirty percent of the students who graduated from The Seeing Eye program in 2011, Barlak said, were new to the program.
Some of the returning students experience waves of emotion because they are gaining a new partner, after spending years with another dog, Barlak said.
"The majority of our people coming in are coming in and they've already had a seeing eye dog before, so they're going through a lot of emotion," she said. "The grief that goes along with retiring your dog because you've been a partner with this dog for maybe eight to 10 years and that dog has become your best friend, and so if you had to give up your dog because, say you're living in housing that has no dogs, obviously you're allowed to live their with your guide dog because he's a service dog, (but) once that dog retires -- he's no longer a service dog, so you have to give the dog up."
The program, Barlak said, houses about 15 to 24 students every month. It allows students to temporarily live in the facility for about three to four weeks, depending on whether they are a new or returning student, and train with their potential new working dog.
One of the challenges students face is adjusting to the new dog. White said she tried to remind herself that her dog is different than the pervious one.
"Every dog is different, their personality is different, their strengths and weaknesses are different, so I think the biggest challenge for me is just getting used to a new dog and always having to tell myself this isn't my last dog. Just because my last dog did something or did something in a particular way doesn't mean the new dog is going to do that," White said. "Not only do I have to learn a new dog ... but they have to learn me as well."
White said her dog is more than just a pet, it's responsible for her safety.
"She keeps me from tumbling down a flight of stairs; she takes me around things, so she keeps me from cracking my head on something ... she is responsible for stopping at the curb so that I know that we've gotten to a street ... so that I'm not walking out into the middle of a street," White said. "Part of that responsibility is mine as well: listening to traffic and knowing when it's safe to cross and telling her 'OK, let's go' and those types of things ... so it is more than just a person and their pet, because she's my working partner."
Both Barlak and White emphasized that the general public should avoid working dogs as to not distract them from the person they are assisting.
"If the dog gets distracted because you're calling out the dog's name, you're talking to it, or sometimes even eye contact is enough to convince the dog that he wants to come over and have you pet him," Barlak said. "If the dog is supposed to be leading someone safely across the street, or around a barricade and they're not paying attention to what's going on around them, they can really injure the owner."
For information, logon to www.seeing eye.org.
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