Please contact Kym Smythe, our club’s New Member Liaison, at kymlc@yahoo.com or our Seeing Eye coordinator, Kimberly Winnington, at kwinnington@seeingeye.org, if you are interested!
In general, after attending a few meetings and filling out a puppy raising application, most raisers will wait a few months (up to 2 years for specific breed requests), to receive a 7-8 week old puppy to raise in their home. Puppy raisers will keep their puppy for approximately 1 year (12 months) – 1 1/2 years (16 months). The Seeing Eye breeds German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, and Labrador/Golden Crosses for their program. As a puppy raiser, you have the option to pick a breed/gender or opt for the first available puppy! Puppy raisers can be as young as nine but can also be an adult/family raising together.
Yes, all potential puppy raisers must join their local club and become active members in monthly meetings and activities. If you are local to Delaware, please contact Kym Smythe, our club’s New Member Liaison, at kymlc@yahoo.com or our Seeing Eye coordinator, Kimberly Winnington, at kwinnington@seeingeye.org. If you are not located in Delaware, please check The Seeing Eye’s
website here for a list of club locations throughout New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
The Seeing Eye provides each puppy with a green bandana (younger puppies) or a green vest (puppies over 6 month) which identify the puppies in public. Please do not go up and pet or call out to a dog wearing one of these bandanas or vests. When the puppy becomes a guide dog it is very distracting to the dog and handler to have people just walk up and pet the animal. Instead, speak directly to the handler – we’d be more than happy to talk to you and will often then allow you to pet our puppy!
With proper PRIOR approval from your leasing office, our puppies can be raised in apartments. Our Area Coordinator and Club leader can assist in helping to provide paperwork proving that your puppy is a Seeing Eye puppy and not a pet.
Although working Seeing Eye dogs are allowed access to all public places, Seeing Eye puppies are not. Raisers need to check with managers or owners before visiting or bringing the puppy with you to a public place to make sure it is okay. The club can help to provide you with guidance on how to ask for permission! The Seeing Eye also does not encourage taking puppies to food stores and restaurants.
Raisers teach the puppies basic obedience and give them lots of social exposure and love. At each meeting a training circle is held where the basic obedience consisting of sit, down, rest, and recall is reviewed. The dogs are never taught to “heel,” but rather to have a firm, steady pull. The dogs are also taught good house manners such as staying off furniture, not jumping up on people, not barking/whining, and no people food.
Some additional commands we use that are unique:
- Park Time – We use this command when your pup needs to eliminate. It lets the puppy know when it’s time to use the bathroom and provides them the verbal cue to do so.
- Rest – your pup must stay in place, whether sitting or standing until you call. We use rest instead of “stay”.
- Forward – used when you want your pup to move forward after a “rest” or “sit” command. This is important to have the puppy lead you as you begin to walk again.
guidingpawsde.org 