Blind Pittie Embraces Her Dad ❤️

<sub>We are pets’ equals.
We’re their family. Be kind to them.
- Ricky Gervais</sub>

😍 Blind Pittie Remembers Dad

🫶🏻 Shelter Dogs Help Struggling Kids

🦮 History of Seeing Eye Dogs

💰 Find Out if You Won $75!

^Heartwarmers
Blind Pittie Remembers Man After Months Apart

• Laura was a foster dog who needed a safe place to recover after an eye surgery which removed both of her eyes.

• She was adopted and returned multiple times, despite being an extremely loving and capable dog.

• The man who fostered her heard that she was being given up for adoption again, and that’s when he decided it was time to bring her home for good.

^News
Front Page Pets

Helping At-Risk Kids with Shelter Dogs

• A woman has found a way to keep kids out of the justice system by using shelter dogs.

• The Canines Teaching Compassion program is an incredible effort that has helped countless kids with difficult lives overcome adversity through the love and support of dogs from similar situations.

• The children train individual dogs and learn emotional intelligence throughout the process, only to use the things they’ve learned to better understand their own experiences.

^{More Cuteness}
Our Favorite Finds This Week

^{Hot off the press!}
More Pet News

Frontline Felines Provide Support in Ukraine

• Cats have emerged as pillars of support for Ukrainian soldiers through the war.

• Many former pets who were separated have ended up in the laps of soldiers.

• Watch the video below to meet a number of these amazing animals who are proving to be more important than they could ever know - all by simply providing a little love in times of trouble.

180lb Dog Lifted Down Mountain by Rescuers

• A Great Pyrenees developed injured paws on a mountain hike with its owner.

• The dog knew its limits, plopped down onto the ground, and refused to move.

• A rescue crew hiked up the mountain with a stretcher and carefully maneuvered down with the nearly-200-pound dog.

Taylor Swift’s Cat Has Higher Net Worth Than Her Boyfriend

• Taylor Swift’s cat “Olivia Benson” reportedly has a net worth of around 97 million dollars.

• Travis Kelce, Taylor’s NFL boyfriend has a net worth of around 70 million dollars.

• Neither of them are even close to matching Taylor’s net worth, which is roughly 740 million dollars.
  

Dog Rescued from Cliff After Being Stuck There for Nearly a Week

• Loki, a Cane Corso, escaped and got lost in the Scottish Highlands.

• Rescuers failed to locate him after an extensive search period.

• A tourist who was hiking happened upon the dog who was stuck on a narrow ledge, surviving off of rainwater.

^{Seeing Sense}
How Guide Dogs Came to America

Guide dogs have spent the last century helping blind and visually impaired Americans in public spaces, all thanks to one man.

If adversity really is preparation for greatness, the early life of Tennessee resident Morris Frank was truly formative. By the age of 16, this young man had lost the sight in both eyes following two unrelated accidents. 

While his contemporaries struggled to move around in public environments, Frank had bigger plans. Inspired by a newspaper story about an institution where German World War I veterans were being helped to walk by guide dogs, he traveled to Europe to discover how animal trainers could give the blind and visually impaired greater freedom.

Following a lengthy spell of instruction in Switzerland, Frank returned home to set up the first guide dog training school in America. Despite his blindness, he was still a visionary. He also had a flair for PR, with an early photoshoot arranged on a dangerous intersection in New York City in 1928 to successfully demonstrate his guide dog Buddy’s ability to read the road correctly.

Seeing Eye to Eye

Drawing on the best practice he’d studied at the Swiss dog training school, Frank established The Seeing Eye in 1929 in his home city of Nashville. Within two years, the first Stateside school for guide dogs had relocated to New Jersey, where it has remained ever since. 

For most of his adult life, Frank traveled across America, meeting two Presidents and changing public attitudes towards blind people. His tireless campaigning led directly to changes in the law – allowing assistance dogs to ride on trains, enter hotels and access most public spaces. Many of the rights guide dogs and their owners enjoy today were Frank’s achievements, educating lawmakers and politicians as well as the wider public.

Following his death in 1980, Frank’s story was immortalized in books, plays and even a Disney television series. The Seeing Eye is now the world’s oldest surviving guide dog school, having partnered over 18,000 guide dog teams across North America. It also runs educational programs and offers lifetime assistance to graduates and their dogs.

Relying on Man’s Best Friend

It takes a great deal of training before a guide dog can navigate public spaces safely, yet dogs are ideally suited to the task. They love to serve, and spending time with their owners is an enduring source of enjoyment and pleasure. 

Not all dogs are temperamentally suited to this role. Small dogs lack the strength to dovetail with a person’s forward momentum, while some breeds may be too energetic, unpredictable or independent in spirit.

In common with guide dog centers around the world, The Seeing Eye relies on three main breeds. These are renowned – and bred – for their docile nature, strength and loyalty: 

1. German shepherds

2. Labradors and crosses

3. Golden retrievers.

The Seeing Eye’s 60-acre administrative campus stands ten miles away from a 330-acre breeding station, where puppies from these three breeds start their education at just eight weeks of age. It takes around 18 months to fully train a dog, with incremental stages concluding with a sighted instructor accompanying the dog and its new owner. 

Incredible Abilities, Beyond Belief

A successful guide dog needs a patient personality and the confidence to disregard orders if they identify potential danger, such as waiting at the curb if a vehicle is approaching – even if their owner asks them to move on. This is known as intelligent disobedience. 

Dogs have many incredible attributes which make them ideally suited as companions for visually impaired humans:

• They can judge heights and distances, identifying overhead obstacles which might affect a person – even if the dog can safely pass under it!

• They can stop at any change in elevation – stairs, ramps, curbs, and so forth.

• They can learn regular routes while also interpreting new ones.

• They can tune out crowds, background noise and other sensory overload to traverse busy environments like train stations.

• They recognize the difference between being on-duty (when their harness is on) and being able to play. 

While many blind people have no vision (including any ability to detect light), some people are able to identify shapes or movement without being able to focus on it. By contrast, dogs have incredible short and middle-distance sight, with a wider field of vision than us and excellent motion detection. Labradors have particularly impressive eyesight, which makes them ideal guide dogs in tandem with their loyal and intelligent personalities.

Many puppies and young dogs turn out to be great pets but not great assistance dogs, and they will be given forever homes with people who don’t need daily assistance. For the visually impaired and registered blind, a fully trained guide dog can be truly life-changing – just as Morris Frank always hoped.

^{A breakdown:}
Last Week’s Poll Results

“Do You Feed Your Dog Kibble?”

• Lola & Herbie readers feed their pets a wide variety of foods, but most incorporate kibble into their best friend’s daily diet.

• Some readers said they cooked their pets meals every day, while others said their dogs & cats would only eat dry food!

• One reader suggested to mix up dry food options at each feeding to try and give pets a variety of protein sources.

Reply to the poll below to enter into next week’s $75 visa gift card lotto.

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