{"id":57756,"date":"2015-11-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-students-training-puppies-to-be-guide-dogs-for-blind-individuals\/"},"modified":"2015-11-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T00:00:00","slug":"uri-students-training-puppies-to-be-guide-dogs-for-blind-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2015\/11\/uri-students-training-puppies-to-be-guide-dogs-for-blind-individuals\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 students training puppies to be guide dogs for blind individuals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 November 17, 2015 \u2013 It was serendipitous that Caitlyn Landry and Kaitlin Kohut became roommates as freshmen at the 溏心vlog免费B站. They didn\u2019t know each other and had grown up many miles apart, but both had an interest in training dogs to be service animals for the blind.<\/p>\n


\n\tKohut, a native of Holbrook, N.Y., had been a volunteer at the Guide Dog Foundation on Long Island as a high school student, and Landry, of Vernon, Conn., said she had always wanted to raise a guide dog, \u201cbut I wasn\u2019t allowed to because my mom thought I\u2019d get too attached to it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now they\u2019re getting their chance. The two students formed the Puppy Raisers club at 溏心vlog免费B站, and, along with students Katie LaBlue, Sarah Appleton and Jenna Beauchemin, became certified through the non-profit Guiding Eyes for the Blind to train dogs to become guide dogs. Now four yellow Labrador retrievers spend all day every day with the students as part of their training.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe dogs come to school with us, we take them to class if the teacher allows, and we have a home base on campus where the dogs can stay if they aren\u2019t allowed in a lab or other class,\u201d said Landry, a junior in the pre-veterinary science program whose dog is named Katie.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe dogs are almost never alone, since most of the more than 40 other members of the Puppy Raisers \u2013 many of whom are in the process of becoming certified to train guide dogs \u2013 are happy to serve as sitters or walk them around campus.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe dogs and their trainers attend a formal class twice a month in Ledyard, Conn., with others in the area raising guide dogs. And every Thursday they gather for meetings of the Puppy Raisers in a classroom at 溏心vlog免费B站 for what they call \u201ca mini puppy class.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dogs are trained to be comfortable in all kinds of settings and situations and to be responsive to their master regardless of whatever distractions they may face. \u201cOur job is to socialize them, to expose them to a variety of situations, and to teach them to be confident in all different scenarios,\u201d said Landry.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe students said the blowing autumn leaves are a distraction that the dogs must be trained to ignore, and they recently took the dogs to the Kingston train station to become acclimated to the sounds and activities of that setting. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cAt one of our meetings we put on blindfolds and had someone lead the dog while we held the leash to get an appreciation for what the dogs will be doing one day,\u201d said Kohut, whose dog is named Tessi. \u201cIt was an eye-opening experience for all of us. To feel your dog have total control over where you\u2019re going is something you\u2019re not used to. You really have to trust them.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAfter about 18 months of training, the dogs complete a test that determines their future career. Some will become guide dogs, while others become breeders of future guide dogs or continue their training to work with police to be drug detectors or serve in a \u201chealing autism\u201d program.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe dogs decide what career they want to choose,\u201d said Kohut, a junior wildlife conservation biology major. \u201cThe people at Guiding Eyes for the Blind read their body language and determine their career based on how they react to different situations.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tKohut and Landry agree that it is difficult to see a dog they have become attached to graduate and be placed elsewhere. But that\u2019s exactly what the animals are being trained for.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cYou know the dogs aren\u2019t yours from the day you get them, so you see them in a different way. After watching a dog be placed with a blind person, I couldn\u2019t wait to get my own dog and see it graduate,\u201d said Kohut. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be easy to give up that dog, but you know they have a bigger purpose in life, that they\u2019re going to completely change someone\u2019s life for the better, and that\u2019s personally rewarding.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\n溏心vlog免费B站 students raising guide dogs for the blind are (back row, l-r) Caitlyn Landry with dog Katie and Katie LaBlue with Pogo; (front row, l-r) Jenna Beauchmin, Kaitlin Kohut with Tessi, and Sarah Appleton with Romeo.<\/p>\n


\n Kaitlin Kohut (right) leads her dog Tessi during a training session at 溏心vlog免费B站.<\/p>\n


\nPhotos by Nora Lewis\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 November 17, 2015 \u2013 It was serendipitous that Caitlyn Landry and Kaitlin Kohut became roommates as freshmen at the 溏心vlog免费B站. They didn\u2019t know each other and had grown up many miles apart, but both had an interest in training dogs to be service animals for the blind. Kohut, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}