The Seeing Eye in NJ celebrates 15,000 guide dog placements

From The Star-Ledger in N.J.:

MORRIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- Josephine DeFini (pictured), who is blind, has had nine guide dogs since graduating high school in 1957.

All of them have been provided by The Seeing Eye in Morris County, and each one has immeasurably improved the life of the 70-year-old New York City resident, she said.

"The ease, freedom, and sense of security and confidence a seeing-eye dog affords you makes life so much easier," DeFini said Friday during a celebration marking a milestone of the nonprofit organization.

DeFini’s latest guide dog, a Labrador Retriever named Zion, was the Seeing Eye’s 15,000th pooch to have been partnered with a blind person during the past eight decades.

"How big is 15,000?" Seeing Eye President/CEO Jim Kutsch rhetorically asked a crowd of 200 people. "That’s 15,000 dog noses and tails, 30,000 ears, 60,000 paws and over a quarter-of-a-million toenails - and we can go on and on. Imagine the number of teeth in 15,000 dogs."

"It puts it in perspective how many lives have been changed by the work we do," continued Kutsch, who also is blind. "You begin to understand the magnitude of what happens here at Seeing Eye."

Based in Morris Township, The Seeing Eye was founded 81 years ago (that’s about 567 in dog years), and has since served more than 8,000 people. It is the world’s oldest guide dog school for the blind and visually impaired in the United States and Canada, and is considered the leading such school in the world. There are about a dozen in the nation, and 72 worldwide accredited by the International Dog Guide Federation.

Nearly 300 students annually attend The Seeing Eye to learn how to instruct and bond with their guide dogs. Students frequently are seen walking with their dogs and instructors in nearby Morristown, where statues of the organization’s co-founder, Morris Frank, and his guide dog, Miguel, are just off the downtown green.

Frank started The Seeing Eye in 1929 in Nashville, Tenn., after being inspired by a 1927 article in The Saturday Evening Post about guide dogs assisting blind World War I veterans written by well-known dog breeder and philanthropist Dorothy Harrison Eustis.

Frank moved in 1931 to Morris County, where The Seeing Eye took up residency in Whippany until 1965 before moving to Morris Township.

It also operates a breeding kennel in Chester Township, where about 500 puppies of four breeds – German Shepherd, Labrador and Golden Retrievers and Lab-Golden mixes, are born each year.

While it costs tens of thousands of dollars to match just one person with a dog, the school’s annual $27 million budget is funded entirely with donations, spokeswoman Jean Thomas said. Students are charged $150 for their first dog, and $50 for any later canines.

The school accommodates up to 24 students per class and holds 12 classes per year.

The 190 employees and 17 current students also used Friday’s occasion to celebrate the 81st anniversary, on Jan. 29.

A lifelong New York City resident, DeFini is a social worker and therapist who retired last year but continues a small private practice. For the past 52 years, she has been able to navigate Manhattan’s hustle-and-bustle thanks to her guide dogs.

‘Man’s Best Friend’ has truly lived up to the billing, she said.

"These dogs will do their damndest," DeFini said. "I hope Zion and I have many years together. However, I know when the time comes (for a 10th dog) … I’ll be back."