Southeastern Guide Dogs: Best. Summer Internship. EVER.

Have the summer off school and don’t know what to do? How about interning at Southeastern Guide Dogs?

It takes over 100 staff members and 500+ core volunteers to keep Southeastern Guide Dogs running like a well-oiled machine, but there’s always room for an extra hand or 20! Summer internships are a great way to get involved with Southeastern Guide Dogs while gaining valuable career knowledge.  Our unpaid college and career internships are designed to create personalized learning experiences in the areas of non-profit management, animal care, veterinary services, human services, genetics, marketing, and development. Do you love little puppies and would like to help them get a great head start on their training?  Being a Puppy Socialization intern might be right up your alley.  You would work with volunteers and staff to provide …

• Photos (1)

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Florence Lundy: Supporting Guide Dogs for More Than 30 Years!

Southeastern Guide Dogs is lucky to have an amazing base of loyal supporters, but few have been around as long as Florence Lundy. Here’s a little bit about her.

Not many people can say that they have supported a cause as long as 96-year-old Florence Lundy. As a member of the now defunct Tropic Isles Mobile Home Park Arts & Crafts Club, Florence first learned of Southeastern Guide Dogs from another member of the club who talked everyone into coming to campus for a tour.  The school, in its infancy, consisted of one building, a few staffers, and some dogs, but Florence and her fellow club members saw the impact a dog could have on someone’s life. When the Arts & Crafts Club disbanded, they had $400 in the club’s account that they decided to donate to Southeastern. Florence proudly keeps the cancelled check from 1983 as a reminder of their good deeds.  During the early days of the school, …

•  2 Comments
• Photos (3)

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Breed All About It

With Westminster Kennel Club crowning a new king, we thought it time to tackle a question we are often asked: "Why don’t you get dogs from shelters to use as guide dogs?"

This week saw a cute little Affenpinscher named Banana Joe take the title as top dog at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.  It also saw Natalie Morales of NBC’s Today Show air a new PSA encouraging people to adopt a dog.  There are people who are passionate about breeding dogs and others who are even more passionate about rescuing dogs from shelters.  A question we are asked quite often is why do we breed dogs instead of getting them from shelters, so here’s why. We have been breeding dogs for the past 30 years and have developed a method to get the traits that make for successful guide dogs. These traits include excellent health, trainability, hardiness, and intelligence. That’s not to say you couldn’t find dogs with those traits in a …

•  2 Comments
• Photos (1)

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Make A Difference This Valentine’s Day

Looking for a unique gift for Valentine’s Day? How about independence and freedom?

It is estimated that Americans will spend approximately $18 billion, that’s BILLION, with a B, on Valentine’s Day this year.  While I admit, it is really nice to receive a beautiful bouquet of flowers, box of chocolates, and enjoy a nice night out, I'd like to see just what could be done if that $18 billion were used a different way.  With $18 billion, Southeastern Guide Dogs could breed, raise, train, place and provide follow-up care for 300,000 guide dog teams.  Or we could feed almost 50,000,000 dogs-in-training for a year. Or 5,100,000+ people could have puppies-in-training named after them.  Or we could purchase more than 60,000,000 guide dog harnesses and leashes.  Wow! To bring those numbers down to more feasible terms, the average …

• Photos (1)

Proud Pup Parents

Saturday is a very special day for some of our puppy raisers. Here’s a look at why.

We have talked about our amazing puppy raisers and the extraordinary things they do to ensure we have dogs that are well-behaved and confident.  And we briefly talked about Puppy Raiser Day, but we thought you might like a more in-depth look at this very special day. Puppy raisers spend approximately 14 months loving, caring for, training, and exposing pups -- starting at 9-10 weeks of age -- to every aspect of life so they will grow to be confident guide dogs.  They then return these uber-obedient dogs back to us to begin their formal harness training in the hopes of becoming a working guide dog. After six months of training with our guide dog trainers, passing a battery of tests, hopefully these dogs are ready to be matched with their …

• Photos (3)

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

12 Days of Christmas, Guide Dog Style

We took the classic 12 Days of Christmas and put our own spin on it!

On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love gave to me….A puppy in a cape, just for me. On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…2 licks of love On the 3rd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…3 furry friends On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…4(0) training words (crazy, but true, guide dogs learn 40 commands!) On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…5 golden dogs On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…6 dogs a-playing On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…7 puppies snoozing On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…8 dams a-whelping On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…9 students singing On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to …

• Photos (1)

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Come To Our Holiday Open House

Kick off December by bringing the family to hang out with guide dogs this weekend!

Southeastern Guide Dogs opens its campus five days a week for puppy huggers and dog walkers, but Saturday is a great opportunity to learn all about Southeastern and our superb dogs because it is Open House! You may be asking how is Open House different from any other time you can come to the Palmetto campus. Well, there are a number of activities going on Dec. 8 that don’t normally occur.  Volunteers will be leading guided tours, filling guests in on the history and inner workings of Southeastern.  While readers of this column have gotten an inside look at what Southeastern does, the tour will give you a chance to put it all together and see the training grounds and kennels for yourself. You’ll also get the chance to interact with the …

• Photos (1)

Nice to Greet You

This week’s article is guest written by one of our puppy raisers – all about the proper way to greet a dog.

Cheryl McLean and her husband raise puppies for Southeastern Guide Dogs.  Coach is their fourth puppy to raise.  Cheryl is also a librarian at Berkeley Preparatory School and is able to bring her puppies to school. This gives the puppies an amazing variety of exposures.  For the last three years the students at Berkeley have raised the money to name her dogs: Berkeley, Joseph A. Merluzzi AKA Jam (after the retiring headmaster) and Coach (Coach Dominick Ciao). This puppy was named by one student, Austin Iglehart, who raised the $3500 himself during Southeastern’s Walkathon. How to Greet a Dog I continue to be amazed at how parents will let their children run up to a stranger’s dog and essentially shove their face into an unknown dog’s face …

• Photos (3)

Trust Me Baby: To Be a Southeastern Grad You Have to Learn Trust

Last week we had another group of students leave campus as graduates of Southeastern Guide Dogs. In order to successfully complete their training, they had to learn to trust their dog, something that is not an easy task.

Take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of our students.  They have been dealing with vision loss for anywhere from the past year to their entire lives; they have learned to take cautious steps and concentrate on the task of getting safely from one place to another; they are now taking the big step of getting a guide dog and have arrived for training.  They are away from all that is familiar, away from family and friends, and are anxious about what is coming in training. Enter our confident guide dog trainers. They have studied each student’s gait, personality, learned about their lifestyle, and have determined the perfect dog for them. The students and their dogs have had their bonding time and now its time to go to work. They go out …

•  4 Comments
• Photos (1)
• Videos (1)

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Preparation is Key: Even for Dogs

Earlier this week you probably got your hurricane kit together and got ready for Isaac. We did here, too! Here’s a look at what it takes to prepare a guide dog campus for inclement weather.

We have been lucky once again and watched as Isaac skirted our coast.  Some people had a bit of flooding, but overall, the impact was far less than expected.  But if it had turned our direction, would you have been ready?  Days before the storm was forecasted to affect the area, our team began preparing campus.  Having been headquartered in Florida for 30 years, we are well acquainted with tropical storms and while we have not had a direct hit, we still prepare for the worst case scenario. Preparations begin by taking a look at the timeline for the storm and what is happening on campus. TS Isaac sort of threw a monkey wrench at us, as it was due to hit on Monday, which coincidently was the day our next group of students would be arriving …

•  2 Comments
• Photos (1)