The relationship of the human being with ourfriends, the dogs, goes back to the night of the times.
One of the first images, which capture the relationship of a blind person accompanied by a guide dog, we find it in a mural of the first century BC in the buried ruins of Roman Herculaneum. There are other records from Asia and Europe to the Middle Ages, of dogs leading to blind men.
Over the centuries there are examples of the relationship of the blind withdogs. Pero it will not be until the nineteenth century that the first dog trainings are documented to guide blind people.
In 1819, Johann Wilhelm Klein, founder of the Institute for the Education of the Blind (Blinden-Erziehungs-Institut), in Vienna, wrote a book to teach the blind the training techniques of guide dogs, called “Lehrbuch zum Unterricht der Blinden”, perfecting Reisinger’s techniques, referring to “a harness that is previously trained and rigid, with great care”
The modern history of the guide dog began during World War I, as thousands of soldiers turned blind from the front, very often due to poison gas. A German doctor,dr. Gerhard Stalling, had the idea of training dogs en masse to help the affected soldiers. One day, while walking with one of his patients on the hospital grounds, he was called urgently and left his dog with that patient to keep him company. When he returned, he saw signs, the way the dog was behaving, that he was taking care of the blind patient.
Dr. Stalling began exploring ways to train dogs to be reliable guides and in August 1916 opened the world’s first guide dog school in Oldenburg.
The school grew and many branches were formed, forexample, in Bonn, Breslau, Dresden, Essen, Freiburg, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Munster and Hanover, training up to more than 600 dogs a year. These schools provided dogs not only to former military personnel, but also to blind people in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union.
In this first stage of training of guide dogs was used the “German shepherd”, very popular breed and that was giving excellent results in all facets of training (rescues, patrols, search etc…).
Around this time, a wealthy American woman, Dorothy Harrison Eustis, was already training dogs for the army, police and customs service in Switzerland. It would be the energy and experience of Dorothy Eustis that would properly throw the movement of the guide dog internationally.
Having heard about the center of Potsdam, Eustis was curious to study the methods of the school and spent several months there. She was so impressed that she wrote an article about the Saturday Evening Post in America in October 1927.
The Beautiful Story of Morris Frank, and His Guide Dog
A blind American, Morris Frank, found out about the article and bought a copy of the paper. He later said that the five cents the paper cost him “bought an item worth more than a million dollars to me. It changed my life.” He wrote to Eustis telling him that he would very much like to help introduce guide dogs to the United States.
Accepting the challenge, Dorothy Eustis trained a dog, Buddy, and took Frank to Switzerland to learn how to work with the dog. Frank returned to the United States with what many believe is the first guide dog in the United States. Eustis later established Seeing Eye School in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1929, but before this he returned to Switzerland to continue working there. Meanwhile, an Italian guide dog organization, Sculola Nazionale Cani Guida Per Ciechi was also established in 1928.
The first recognized guide dogs in Spain arrived in 1963 and came from the Leader Dog For The Blind schoolin Rochester, Michigan, near Detroit. The National Organization of the Blind of Spain (ONCE) and the Association <> (founder of that school, reached an agreement so that the Spaniards could obtain the dogs in E. E. U. U.
The first guide dog training centre in Spain was the School of Dogs-Guide for the Blind General optica, of Sant Joan (Mallorca) founded in 1972 by Mr. Picornell, after a brief visit to a center of the United Kingdom, with the sponsorship of General Optics..
The number of students per class was three. This school delivered about 150 dogs and officially closed its doors in 1987.
In 1991, the ONCE Foundation of the Guide Dog began its production that has been maintained to this day, being the only school of guide dogs recognized throughout the Spanish territory.