Photo by Nancy Royden. Suzanne Mead of Bowie is happy be to a puppy raiser for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Training is held locally in Bowie at St. Matthews United Methodist Church.

Published on: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

By Nancy Royden

Suzanne Mead and her children, Mariah, 12, and C.J., 10, are making a positive difference in people’s lives by being a volunteer puppy raiser for Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

Not only does the training benefit the future human partner of the dog, it gives the Meads a chance to learn about service to others.

“It’s a family thing. The whole family participates in it,” said the Bowie resident.

Photo by Nancy Royden. Tangee, an 18-month old Labrador retriever, is being trained to become a guide dog through Guiding Eyes for the Blind

The Yorktown Heights, a N.Y.-based organization, is an internationally accredited, nonprofit guide dog school founded more than 50 years ago to improve the lives of blind and visually impaired men and women. The dogs provide them freedom to travel safely and they can have more independence, dignity and opportunities, said Kelly Lee, spokesman for the organization.

The Meads are raising an 18-month old female Labrador retriever named Tangee.

Mead said she and her children became involved with Guiding Eyes for the Blind because she is a good friend of the prior regional manager.

Mead said a blind man who was assisted by a German shepherd also inspired her.

“I was awe-inspired,” she said. “I don’t know. Something clicked. I now know I can be part of it.”

Gretchen Pierce, local regional manager for the Guiding Eyes puppy program, said she first became involved with the group as a volunteer in New York.

Pierce said taking the first step to becoming a puppy trainer is easy – all it takes is an interest in the program.

Through puppy training classes, Pierce said those involved in the process could discover what the dog is all about. There are many things that can distract them during the learning process and the length of training time will vary among dogs.

When people become involved with Guiding Eyes for the Blind, they attend pre-puppy classes to learn about the program. Then they see how things go for one week with a puppy. If things go well, they start to raise a puppy of their own and go to puppy classes once a week, Pierce said.

As things progress with training, the puppies and their caretakers attend classes two times a month.

Quarterly, one-on-one sessions are also provided as part of the training, Pierce said.

In Bowie, classes are held Thursday evenings at St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church at 14900 Annapolis Road. Volunteers take 8-week-old puppies into their homes, love, nurture and educate them for a 12- to 16-month period before they are paired with a man or woman, Lee said.

Ellen Higgins, a Trappe resident, raised a second puppy for Guiding Eyes and he now lives with Jose Montanez in Manhattan. Montanez lost his vision as a result of a blood transfusion in his 20s.

Higgins said it brings her much happiness to know the dog she worked with will vastly improve the quality of life for someone else.

“Not a day goes by that you don’t think of the pup’s special calling or the role that you play in helping the pup succeed to achieve that calling. When you get the news that your dog has passed its training test, there is great joy – and then even greater joy when you receive the call that your dog has been paired with a blind person,” she said.

Lee said the primary mission of Guiding Eyes is for dogs to be trained to assist the blind and visually impaired, but some of them will go on to benefit people with autism. A small percentage of them go on to work at police agencies.

The Guiding Eyes Puppy Raising Program is comprised of more than 400 volunteers from Maine to North Carolina. Since its inception, the group has graduated more than 7,000 guide dog teams.

Michelle Brier, spokeswoman for Guiding Eyes, said there are nearly 40 puppy-raising regions from Maine to North Carolina and as far west as Ohio.

For more information about Guiding Eyes, call 1-866-GEB-LABS or visit www.guidingeyes.org/volunteer/puppy-raising/.