Man and Dog...What a sight!

Beginning her work in Switzerland in the early 1920's a woman by the name of Dorothy Harrison Eustis would become a founding stone for the worlds leading service animals. It was in Europe that the beginning of training and focused breeding would form what is now "The Seeing Eye"- A school focused on dog leading man. Originally only German Shepherds were used as the breed of choice for such tasks, as at the time they were thought to be of the highest intelligence, dependability and strength.

After the worlds first wars, many men came back blinded or visually impaired and suffered from a loss of navigational freedom. With focused K9 training being exceptional in Germany, Dorothy Eustis--a breeder of police dogs herself, took practices and began molding her own courses for dogs in order to create the worlds first "visually impaired assistance dog". These courses would include agility, obedience and lots of behavior based procedures.

Later on she would have an article about the work of her dogs published, this pioneering article would reach a young 20 year old blind man named Morris Frank all the way in Nashville, TN. After reading this publication and having a spark ignite inside himself, Frank flew to Switzerland to spend weeks training along side Eustis.

It was Morris Frank who brought his first trained dog 'Buddy' back to the United States and would go on with countless others to set up Schools for the blind in Nashville Tenessee. In 1931 Eustis purchased a ten-bedroom mansion in Whippany, New Jersey where training would further. In 1966, just 35 years later-- the new location of the seeing eye was constructed in Morristown, NJ- where students can learn to work with their dogs with ease and comfortability.

In 2016 it is now happily quoted that an average of 200-260 trained dogs per year are certified and matched up with their blind companions to create not just a coalition between two wonderful species, but one of the purest forms of symbiosis and coexistence in the highest branches of the animal kingdom.  

Man and Dog....What a sight!