[nagdu] First guide dog in years hits streets with master

Pickrell, Rebecca M (TASC) REBECCA.PICKRELL at tasc.com
Fri Jul 20 17:14:15 UTC 2012


Interesting stuff. Almost sounds like the dog was custom trained.

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ginger Kutsch
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 7:10 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] First guide dog in years hits streets with master

First guide dog in years hits streets with master

Hong Kong News Watch

Lo Wei and Ada Lee

Jul 19, 2012

Source:
http://topics.scmp.com/news/hk-news-watch/article/First-guide-dog-in-years-h
its-streets-with-master

Google poses with his trainer Raymond Cheung in Sai Wan Ho after his
graduation yesterday.





Hong Kong's first guide dog in more than 30 years - a Labrador retriever
named Google - graduated from training yesterday even as rival guide-dog
groups continued to war over who his rightful owner is.

Despite the ownership fight, the one-year-old retriever was capped with a
mortar board and handed over to his delighted new master, David Wong
Man-chiu, 62, who has been blind for 20 years.

"I attended Google's birthday party last year just because I was curious to
learn a bit more about guide dogs," Wong said. "I had only seen one on TV 37
years ago. I never thought I would own one one day."

Guide dogs have been non-existent in Hong Kong since the last one was struck
by a car 36 years ago and an expert deemed the city too noisy and crowded
for their safety.

Wong said he was pleased that Hongkongers seemed to accept Google's presence
as the pair trained together.

"When I took the MTR with Google for the first time, I was relieved that he
did not cause any panic among passengers," said Wong. "I took him to the
elderly centre where I work as a volunteer and it was all right, too."

Google will live with Wong until death or scheduled retirement at age 11. At
that point, Wong will have to decide whether to keep him or send him to live
with another family.

Handing Google to Wong should for all practical purposes end the months-long
ownership fight between the dog's trainer, Raymond Cheung Wai-man, and
Cheung's former employer, the Hong Kong Guide Dogs Association.

Nonetheless, both sides continued to claim ownership of Google, as well as
another guide dog, Iris.

The dispute broke out when Cheung - the city's sole licensed guide-dog
instructor - left the association and, with Google and Iris, set up his own
group, Hong Kong Seeing Eye Dog Services.

The association blamed Cheung for a collapse in mediation talks and would
not rule out further action. But Cheung said Wong and Google could not be
separated.

"This won't change, no matter what the result of the mediation is," Cheung
said. Copyright (c) 2012. South China Morning





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