[nagdu] Cool email from Russia's guide dog school

[Vanessa Lowery]

My family and I will be flying off to Russia soon, so I did some snooping on the internet.  I not only found information about a guide dog training center in Russia, but they have had such a program since the 1940's.  I emailed the school and got a reply back.  I was hoping to possibly visit the school since it is relatively close to Moscow, one of the cities we will be visiting.  

However, the school is in the process of renovating a building they will be renting which will serve as offices and facilities for the dogs.  Until it is fully ready in Winter, the puppies and dogs in training will stay in homes, and the trainers have to do a lot of traveling to pick up the dogs in training, work with the dogs, and then transport them back to their homes.  The training wiht students is done in the home community where each person lives.  Right now, they ahve a substantial waiting list.  Also, their dogs are trained for eight months.

they invited me to come visit their facility in the winter.  Not likely to happen--I'd need more leave time than I will probably have at that time, but maybe in the future, I can bop back over to Russia's motherland and take them up on their invitation.  

I think of the word dedication when considering what the instructors hve to deal with there as compared to our guide dog programs here in the U.S.  I suspect that compared to even the smallest school here in the U.S., they have some serious catching up to do, especially since the program went through some rough financial times about five or ten years ago (I had read an article about that sometime back, don't recall the source).  But they are carrying on, and that is commendable.





Vanessa Lowery, LGSW
Adult and Community Services Division
Adult Services Screening Unit
410-853-3550
VLowery at dhr.state.md.us



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