Family raises pup for the blind

Friday, September 10, 2010

Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, visits a veterinary tech class with trainer Dan Murphy for a presentation.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, takes a kayak ride with Maggie Murphy.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, visits church.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, waits for his trainer at Cleary Cleaners.

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Submitted photo The Murphy family of Bedford had the opportunity to train a guide dog for the Guiding Eyes for the Blind program, and this is Sebastian, the yellow lab that made himself at home with the Murphys. The family says they plan to raise another guide dog.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, visits a veterinary tech class with trainer Dan Murphy for a presentation.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, visits a veterinary tech class with trainer Dan Murphy for a presentation.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, with his new owner, Kirstie Simmons.

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Submitted photo Sebastian, the puppy raised by the Murphy family, of Bedford, for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, visits a veterinary tech class with trainer Dan Murphy for a presentation.

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BEDFORD – Dan Murphy was interested in bringing a dog into the family – but his wife, Maggie, wasn’t so sure about the idea.

Their compromise: They decided to raise a puppy for about 12 months through Guiding Eyes for the Blind, an internationally accredited, nonprofit dog school that has been providing guide dogs for the blind and visually impaired for more than 50 years.

“For everyone, it happens in different ways,” said Michelle Brier, events and marketing manager for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. “Once people are interested, we have them take pre-placement classes where they learn all they need to get started.

“Once they complete the program, we figure out what type of puppy is right for them based on personality, what a person’s lifestyle is, things similar to what we’ll consider when we match a guide dog with a blind person.”

Through Guiding Eyes’ volunteer puppy raising program, the Murphys were paired up with Sebastian, a 7-month-old yellow Labrador retriever.

“He was a great dog, just really fun-loving,” Dan Murphy said. “He was easy to teach, but there were times when he was hard to train, because he kind of had a mind of his own. … When he did understand his place, he performed very admirably.”

Guiding Eyes has been breeding puppies selectively for health and temperament for almost 40 years, Brier said. Ninety-five percent of the dogs are Labrador retrievers, while golden retrievers and German shepherds make up the remaining 5 percent of the breeds available.

Most puppies are about 8 weeks old when they go to families from Maine to North Carolina, and as far west as Ohio. The Murphys acquired Sebastian after his previous family gave up raising duties for health reasons, Murphy said.

“It is a commitment,” Brier said. “Families are required to attend weekly training classes up until the puppy is 6 months old, and twice a month after they are older than that. Most puppy raisers find ways to weave their puppy into their daily life where it just becomes a fun part of the day.”

The raiser’s financial contribution is also minimal. Guiding Eyes covers most of the puppy’s equipment expenses and all of its veterinary expenses. Raisers provide the food and dog toys, which are tax deductible, Brier said.

For New Hampshire puppy raisers, training classes take place at the Pilgrim Congregational Church UCC in Nashua.

At training sessions, “we would go through those things Guiding Eyes would like you to be working on at a particular time in the puppy’s life,” Murphy explained. “I can’t even stress enough how supported I felt I was. Any time I had a problem training him at home, I could call the volunteer staff for advice. I had some trouble with a few things with Sebastian, and Guiding Eyes even had one person come to my house and observe me to see what I was doing.”

Raising and training the dog simply became part of Murphy’s daily routine, he said.

“It’s a little bit more of a commitment than raising your own dog, but its not a whole lot more than having a dog as a pet,” Murphy said. “The main thing is to try to get the dog disciplined, socialized and confident – those are the three things Guiding Eyes really needs the raisers to do. You would probably only do the first thing if you were raising a dog as your pet.”

Plus, when training a dog to be able to lead a blind or visually impaired person, there are certain things puppies need to prepare for.

“We want the dogs to be out and about to check out different under footings, whether it be subway grate, or changes as small as changes from carpet to tile, and to get them used to hearing things like traffic noises and weather sounds,” Brier said. “We believe the more things a puppy is exposed to at a young age, the dog will develop a reference library and as the dog grows older, and it becomes harder to surprise them and throw them off when they are guiding somebody.”

Week by week, Murphy brought his four-legged friend with him everywhere, from the bank, to the diner, to playgrounds, depending on what Sebastian needed to work on.

“I tried to come up with field trips as often as I could, at least twice a week,” Murphy said. “You want to take him somewhere where you think he can be successful. … I’d say, ‘I’m going to try some open space,’ so I’d take him to Benedictine Park, or say I wanted him to meet a few people, maybe I’d take him to the Vista parking lot and walk him up and down the strip.”

“He was very excitable when he heard young people’s voices or a baby crying or laughing,” Murphy said. “So to help him with that, I would take him around outside playgrounds.”

And everywhere Murphy took the dog, he said people were extremely inviting toward Sebastian; he was never prohibited from going places because he had a Labrador in tow.

“I really expected so much more resistance from people, like almost offended that you get to take your dog in somewhere, where people would say, ‘Well, he’s just a pet,’ ” Murphy said. “But I never got that from people. Once in a while, I’d get challenged, because he didn’t have his cape in the beginning, as a service dog in training, but when they found out that he was a service dog, they were always very welcoming.”

Despite Sebastian’s shoe-chewing and remote-stealing tendencies – typical of any puppy – Murphy said caring for the dog was as enjoyable as raising one of his kids – especially when he started behaving like a guide dog.

“It’s like all of a sudden a switch goes off and he grows up,” Murphy said. “All of a sudden, he stopped doing some of the naughty things he was doing, and just started taking his work so much more seriously. He was still having fun, but for some reason it got really easy all of a sudden.”

Sebastian behaved so well, Murphy said, he allowed his furry friend to attend some of the college accounting courses he teaches at Great Bay Community College – where Sebastian’s cute disposition often put him to the test.

“It’s so funny, because you have to teach people how to treat the dog, because when the dog is working, he shouldn’t be greeted,” Murphy said. “The folks at school were trained to completely ignore him until I gave them permission to greet him, and you won’t believe how great people are. Nobody would pet the dog without asking – and he was adorable, so everybody wanted to pet him.”

But it was Sebastian’s own guide dog graduation day when Murphy said he felt the proudest of his pup.

“It was about the same feeling as watching your kid graduate from college,” Murphy said. “You feel great. You feel proud. It’s a huge accomplishment for the dog because they have to go through tons of testing to get where they are – it’s lots of pride, happiness for the graduate, sad that you have to give him up, but that sadness is way overcome by the joy.”

Though giving away the dog wasn’t easy at all, Murphy said the 12 months of training he provided, and the difficulty he felt giving the dog away, was all worth it when he was able to meet Kirstie Simmons, Sebastian’s new owner, who will be a college freshman next year.

“It meant a lot,” Murphy said. “I got to know (Kirstie and her family) and to get comfortable knowing that he’s in a great place. … It’s just a good feeling that you did something really, really cool for somebody else.”

Though puppy raisers aren’t always able to meet the guide dog recipient, knowing the dog will do what it was raised to do is often the biggest reward for people, Brier said.

“It’s a great lesson in learning to love something and letting it go for a higher purpose,” Brier said. “It’s one of the more fun things you can do as a family. You have this adorable little puppy and you get to teach it all of these wonderful things and watch it grow up.”

“For (the recipient), it’s hard for me to put into words,” Brier said. “It’s life-changing for a lot of people. It’s been the motivator they need to go to college, to go back to school. It gives them the ability to walk their children to the bus stop in the morning, or to go to their kids’ soccer games.

“We like to think our guide dogs help to level the playing field for people, because as soon as people are able to walk freely, then there’s nothing else they can’t do. So for them, it’s not just a mobility aid, it’s also a best friend.”

Last year, Guiding Eyes provided 170 guide dogs to visually impaired people and five dogs within their autism service program. They currently have 350 puppy raisers in their nationwide program, but they’re always looking for more, Brier said.

“The blind population is growing in relation to the baby boomers getting older, so there will be a much greater need for guide dogs, and a much greater need for puppy raisers,” Brier said.

Sixty percent of raisers like their first puppy-raising experience so much, they do it again, Brier said.

The Murphys are planning on contributing to that statistic; Murphy said his family plans to raise another puppy next spring, though his 16-year-old daughter, Julia, will probably be taking on most of the responsibilities.

“You’re taking a little puppy into your home, and of course there might be a couple of nights you might have to wake up and take the puppy out,” Brier said. “But it really is all worthwhile, and that tough part lasts such a short time. A puppy raiser has so much fun, while being able to do something that does change the world.”

For more information on becoming a puppy raiser, visit www.guidingeyes.org.