A Life Changing Mistake

A Life Changing Mistake

As one of the first types of Service Dogs, guide dogs play an important role in people's lives. Guide Dogs have to go through a tough training to become a Service Dog. The training starts when the dogs are puppies. Some of the dogs that start get cut along the way. Not all the dogs that start the training finish it. Guide Dogs have changed the world so much, but what most people don't know is that guide dogs came to be by mistake!

World War I lasted more than four years from 1914 to 1918. During the war, approximately 8.5 million people were killed and 21 million were wounded. Near the end of World War I, a doctor was walking outside a German military hospital with a soldier who became blind during battle. The doctor’s dog joined the walk and when the doctor was called into one of the buildings, the blind soldier was left alone with the dog.

When the doctor returned, the blind man and the dog were missing. When the doctor found them, he discovered that his dog had lead the blind soldier across the hospital grounds. The doctor was amazed by what his untrained dog could do. He decided to see how well a trained dog could lead a blind man.

The results were astonishing and the German Government soon expanded the guide dog program.

An American women named Dorothy Eustis visited Potsdam, Germany to learn about the guide dog program. Through an article that she wrote, she brought public attention to the program in the United States. The first American Guide Dog School, “The Seeing Eye”, was established in 1929. Today 10 major organizations train guide dogs.