The last Wednesday in April, on April 27th this year, the world celebrates International Guide Dog Day. The story of guide dogs begins in 79 AD where excavations in Pompeii revealed a wall-painting of a dog leading a blind man. Since those early years, guide dogs have helped people with vision loss make their way though the world and offered friendship. The ‘official’ training of guide dogs began after the First World War to assist veterans returning home who were blinded due to the war. In 1927 American dog trainer, Dorothy Harrison Eustis, visited the guide dog training centre in Potsdam, Germany run by the German Shepherd Dog Association. In 1929 she, and a 19 year old blind man, Morris Frank, established The Seeing Eye Guide Dog School in Morristown, New Jersey. As a requirement for her Orientation and Mobility Certification, Judy Robinet, A Life Worth Living Executive Director, had the privilege to be trained at The Seeing Eye.
For many blind people, guide dogs are the gateway to a more independent life. A guide dog can make previously challenging situations, such as crossing a busy street or walking to the bus stop – situations that sighted people take for granted; so much easier. Today we’ll look at the first official American guide dog: Buddy.
Guide dogs provide opportunities for social interaction and greater independence for legally blind adults. International Guide Dog Day pays tribute to the dogs who do this impressive work.
Most people know Service Dogs help people who have physical, psychiatric, or developmental disabilities. Few people can describe a Service Dog’s work, though. Here are 100 examples of Service Dog tasks.
The Seeing Eye is a philanthropic organization whose mission is to enhance the independence, dignity, and self-confidence of blind people through the use of Seeing Eye® dogs.
Our Business Accessibility Toolkit (BAT) initial course is ready. TheAccessible Digital Communications (ADC) Course is a must for business owners and professionals to get a firm grounding in accessibility concepts and universal design. We have other courses being created with very important participants in the Accessibility space. Currently we are coordinating courses for accessibility coding, audio description and document accessibility. These offerings are aimed at providing specific professional skill development.
Milestones
A Life Worth Living consistently creates defined goals and sets them as milestones that we track to in order to provide concrete examples of our progress for our team and the public. The current targets that we are sharing for 2022 are:
We are fast approaching 2500+ followers on Facebook. Some of our posts are motivating lively conversations.
“Soft Launch” of our core Business Accessibility Toolkit launch in Q2 – still on track!
Premium Courses are being added in partnership with our allies to build skills you can use in your profession. The first course ready and more are ready soon.
And A Continued Thank You…
A Life Worth Living would like to extend a special thank you again to the Paradise Gaming Centre and Ontario Charitable Gaming Association – It is through the opportunity to raise bingo revenues that we are able to continue our work building our resource library to help change the disability narrative one story at a time. Play Bingo! Thank you.
We Need Your Help
With your donation to our online Resource Library and experienced-based Training Courses, you open the door to answers.
