Making A Difference in Your Community : Puppy Raisers Give Eyesight to the Blind

It was Doggie Day at Ralph’s, but the pickings were pretty slim for the dog.

As master Cherry Teter roamed the produce section, the squat, paddle-pawed, black Labrador beside her worked the tile floor. A sprig of mint here, an onionskin there--nothing to perk even a puppy’s palate.

“This is the hard part about the grocery store--learning to leave stuff that’s on the floor,” Teter said, tugging on the leash of 5-month-old Odyssey.

But learn Odyssey must. In a year, she will have more responsibility than keeping candy wrappers out of her mouth.

Odyssey is one of a batch of 205 puppies--Labradors, golden retrievers and German shepherds--being trained as seeing eye dogs by a Sylmar organization called Guide Dogs of America.

That makes Teter one of 205 foster parents, or puppy raisers, who must give up the dogs when they reach adulthood--something that many expect would be heart-wrenching.

But Teter has done this before, if with some difficulty.

Odyssey is the third puppy she’s raised for Guide Dogs. The first, a golden retriever named Rainbow, didn’t make it through the program. Rainbow’s trainers feared she might snap at a child and Teter eventually adopted the dog as a pet.

Teter’s next venture as a puppy raiser came with Treasure, a retriever now in training.

After successfully doing her part and returning Treasure to the Sylmar center for further training, Teter suffered puppy withdrawal and picked up the phone.

A few weeks later, Odyssey came to live in her Reseda home.

Though puppy raisers know they’re raising the dogs for someone else, they must constantly remind themselves their bond cannot be a permanent one.

“You’re giving the dog a lot of love. You’re taking the dog to a lot of places with you. They become your buddies,” she said.

But an occasional chat with one of the hundreds of blind individuals who has been given the guide dogs and through them, independence, keeps the puppy raisers on track.

Formerly called International Guiding Eyes, the organization was founded in 1948 after former machinist Joseph Jones was refused a guide dog because, at 57, he was deemed too old.

Jones’ union local set up funds and International Guiding Eyes started providing dogs at no cost and with no limits on the age of the recipient.

Now the nonprofit organization graduates 50 to 60 dogs a year, at a cost of $20,000 each.

Not all the dogs bred at Guiding Eyes make it through the program. Some can’t handle the training, some are disqualified because of physical problems. The dogs who are rejected--at Guiding Eyes they call it a “career change”--are generally adopted by puppy raisers or families on a two-year waiting list to give the dogs homes.

Only 30% of the golden retrievers and German shepherds make it to graduation. But 70% of the Labradors finish. Which means that Odyssey has a pretty good shot. That is, if she can maneuver the grocery store obstacle course of children shrieking “Sit! Sit!”, runny packages of chicken parts, and of course, the temptations on the tile floor.

Though the market is a new stop for Odyssey, she’s already conquered-- with considerable effort--elevators, toy stores, malls and a police firing range. Next comes the bus, the train, perhaps even a movie theater.

“The more situations you expose them to, the better they’re going to be with the person,” Teter said.

And, she added, it’s no more difficult than taking a child to the store.

“It’s easier. You can’t put your kids on a leash,” Teter said. “And you don’t find any surprises in your shopping cart when you get to the checkout stand.”

For more information about becoming a puppy raiser, call Guide Dogs of America at (818) 362-5834.

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