Providing hope at both ends of the leash
Guide Dog Division
The purpose of this division of our program is to provide guide dogs to increase the independence of people with vision loss. As there are many guide dog programs available across Canada and North America providing series, our guide dog program may be small but our dogs are exceptional.
As with other types of dogs trained in our programs guide dogs and clients equally benefit from the programs ability to customize a guide dogs skills beyond just navigating the world.
The ideal candidate for a guide dog from Leash of Hope is a person who has experienced vision loss who is fully comfortable navigate their day to day activities and outings with a full toolkit of adaption skills such as use of a phone and/or computer, O&M skills, mind mapping etc. A guide dog is a phenomenal way to enhance independence for people who are active in their daily life pursuing education or career.
Tasks a Guide Dog Can Preform
Guiding and navigation
Our guide dogs are trained to assist you with navigating everyday environments including low hanging objects, obstacles or hazards in your path, and bringing you to the crosswalk button and reaching up and pushing it.
Item Identification and Retrieval
Our dogs are specially trained to find and retrieve dropped items like credit cards, phones and keys. If they cant retrieve it they will instead indicate to you with their nose or paw where it is so you can get it.
Finding landmarks and people
Our dogs are trained to find elevators, stairs, exits and people. if you are in need of a sighted persons assistance like the skytrain attendants or a concierge our dogs will bring you to them so you can ask for help.