09/01/2026
September is when we celebrate the extraordinary bonds between a guide dog and their handlers: September is National Guide Dog Month!
We interviewed our Braille Proofreader, Hope to tell us more about guide dogs! Hope has a guide dog named Bandit. She helps Hope get safely from point A to point B. Bandit knows commands like, forward, left, right, sit, down, stay, come, heel, find the door, find the stairs, and much more.
When guide dogs are about eight weeks old, they go to a puppy raiser family where they get socialized and learn basic commands. Between 15 to 18 months, they go to guide dog school where they get trained with harnesses and learn about traffic for six months before getting matched with a handler. "Bandit got matched with me when she was almost two. And so, basically they match you based on your lifestyle...because they don't wany you match a dog that walks super-fast with a handler that walks super slow and vice versa."
Getting a guide dog didn't cost home anything because she gets them through a non-profit. But there are requirements. To qualify for a guide dog, a person must first complete Orientation & Mobility Training, often called travel or cane training. MAB offers Orientation & Mobility training throughout the year. Having a guide dog is very important to people like Hope, who are blind or have low vision that can't be corrected with lenses, because it provides independence and mobility. They rely on these dogs for direction and guidance. "Sometimes people will come up and try to grab the person's arm, which is very startling or they will try to grab the harness handle of the dog. And I'm saying, okay, do you want me to grab the steering wheel of your car when you're driving it? "The best thing you can do is educate them as nicely as possible, because you may be the only blind or visually impaired person, they've ever seen, and you may be the only blind person they'll ever see again. So, if you're rude to them, then the next blind person that comes along, they automatically say, oh, blind people are rude." So, it is very important to educate yourself and others in a respectful way.
