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 …

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Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs: Building a Warm Welcome

As Southeastern Guide Dogs continues to grow, so does the need for updating the various buildings on campus.

If you have followed this column, you may be familiar with the process of creating world class guide dogs.  Puppies begin their training from birth, and are then sent to live with volunteers throughout the southeastern US to learn basic obedience and be socialized to every aspect of life.  When the pups are 14-16 months old, their puppy raisers return them to us to begin formal harness training.  Kind of like dropping a kid off at college, the puppy raisers watch as their charges are trotted off to the Assessment Kennel.  Well, that kennel is in need of some freshening-up therefore, we have launched a fundraising project for a brand new Canine Assessment Center. The current Assessment Kennel has been on our campus for over 26 years, but …

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Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs: Bo is a Star!

See Southeastern Guide Dogs' Bo be a star in "Blind Pass," which will screen at the Lakewood Ranch and Burns Court cinemas.

In the Winter of 2011, we were approached by Midnight Pass Productions to help out with their latest film, Blind Pass.  In the film, the main character is going blind and decided she needed a guide dog. The producers came to us not only to see if we could provide a dog for the film, but also to make sure their portrayal was accurate.  After seeing an episode of ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars in which the guide dog handler used both her white cane and dog at the same time and her dog barked and growled at someone, we were thrilled that Midnight Pass wanted to get things right. First, a production assistant came for a tour of campus and talked with us about what would be the dog’s role in the film. Next the producers, Steve Tatone (also …

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Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs is in Sarasota too!

Typically this column talks about the goings on at Southeastern Guide Dogs’ Palmetto Campus. But this week, we wanted to turn the focus south to our Sarasota location.

September 2010 saw the expansion of Southeastern Guide Dogs into a new area: Sarasota.  Southeastern took over the building formerly inhabited by Scoop Management, where, unfortunately a number of locals were the victims of Art Nadal’s nefarious business practices.  And really, what better way to change the karma in a building than making it the home base of a non-profit? Southeastern Guide Dogs Sarasota Training Center and Dog Boutique now serves as a place where the general public can come and learn about guide dogs and the amazing work they do.  A new program is launching April 10th that will allow participants to “Shadow a Guide Dog Trainer.”  This fun, informative weekly workshop will explain the methods used to train guide dogs and …

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Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs: Graduate Profile – Dennis Babini & Chief Cordell

Last week saw another group of students graduate from Southeastern with their new guide dogs. Here is just one of their stories.

At the intersection of US 19 and Sunset Point Road, Dennis Babini’s life changed forever.  Dennis, a police officer for the Clearwater Police Department, was rear-ended in his patrol car by a drunk driver. The accident split both maculas, taking his sight. “My whole life ended, I used to ride a Harley, skydive, ride horses, hunt, and had gotten into underwater photography. That was all gone” remembered Dennis. Two years after the accident, Dennis went to mobility school to learn independent living as a blind person and also applied for his first guide dog from Southeastern. Recently Dennis returned to Southeastern Guide Dogs for his fifth dog, a handsome black Lab named Chief Cordell. Chief Cordell was named in honor of Chief Master …

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Southeastern Guide Dogs: Enriching Lives, One Dog at a Time

All work and no play makes anyone grumpy—human or canine. Southeastern Guide Dogs has a program in place to make sure all of the dogs in training get playtime too.

Earlier in the week, we posted a picture on our Facebook page of two dogs cuddling in their run in the Training Kennel.  While it got lots of “a-w-w” and “so cute,” some people commented that the dogs shouldn’t be made to lie on the hard floor.  We agree!  That is why they have raised dog beds in each run, so they have a choice of where to rest. Since everyone was so passionate about the care our dogs receive, we thought we’d share information about our Canine Enrichment program to illustrate just how pampered and well cared-for our dogs really are. There’s no question about it, guide dogs work hard.  They are responsible for someone’s safety and that’s a lot of responsibility for four paws.  Guide dog training is also difficult, learning …

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Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs: Play to Your Strengths

Ever wonder what happens to the dogs that aren’t cut out to be guide dogs? Well, they have a “career change!”

It takes a dog with very specific characteristics and abilities to become a guide dog.  They must be intelligent, patient, hard-working, focused, loyal, meticulous, conscientious and sound. While all of these qualities are selectively bred into each of Southeastern Guide Dogs’ dogs, not every one of them ends up with the perfect balance of all traits.  So, if they aren’t quite right for the demanding work of being someone’s eyes, Southeastern finds a job for that dog that plays to their strengths and at which they can excel. A branch of Southeastern’s Paws for Patriot program trains Veteran Service Dogs that are specially trained to work with a veteran who is living with post traumatic stress and help to mitigate its symptoms. These …

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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 …

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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 …

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Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Graduate Profile: Jerry Wixson and Guide Dog Harley

This week another group of students graduated with their guide dogs. Here is just one of their stories.

Bradenton resident Jerry Wixson has done much in his life.  A veteran, who was part of the critical skills program, he also helped to build the interstate system in the U.s.. He is a husband of 55 years to his high school sweetheart, and a father of three daughters. Jerry has always had a positive outlook. When facing vision loss in 2000 due to retinitis pigmentosa, he quickly went through the stages of denial, anger, and acceptance to get right to doing something about it.  After completing orientation and mobility training at the Lighthouse, he next had his sights set on getting a guide dog. Now, all these years later, Jerry came back to Southeastern Guide Dogs for his second guide and was paired with a loveable black goldador (or as …

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