A new day for guide dogs and their owners

From our sister paper down in Westchester comes an article about a graduation ceremony.

Noreen O'Donnell of the Journal News wrote about Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights ceremony Saturday that had 11 people receiving new guide dogs.

They came from across the United States and as far as Sao Paulo, Brazil, to which Rodrigo Galvao, a 32-year-old lawyer, will return with one of only 60 guide dogs in that country. He has already had several canes broken in the bustle of Sao Paulo, he said.

Like other graduations, this one featured well-wishers and speeches and whoops and cheers. But these graduates came paired with their dogs, whose noses stuck out from under the seats. And in the audience were the volunteers who had raised and trained the dogs as puppies, couples such as Mike and Raina Napolitano of West Warwick, R.I.

The Napolitanos took in a dog named Orion who was going to Oakland, Calif., lawyer Michael Moore.

Moore aptly described the difference between using a cane and having a guide dog.

"It's the difference between riding a bike and flying," he said. "The cane is like a bicycle. You feel every bump. And with a dog you don't feel that. I also tell people with a cane, you have to find the obstacle, figure out what it is. And with a dog, you just avoid the obstacle entirely."

Congratulations to the new recipients of the guide dogs, and thanks to volunteers who cared for them.

More mock disaster

Along with the mock animal rescue drill Monday, the American Humane Association brought their 82-foot rescue rig to the Dutchess County Farm and Home Center in the Town of Washington.

See my story in today's Poughkeepsie Journal and Karl Rabe's pictures here.


Todd Simons, promotion manager for Animal Emergency Services of the American Humane Association, gave me a tour of the tractor-trailer. In addition to the surgical theater (above) and the command center (below), complete with satellite uplink and downlink which provides Internet service, the rig can sleep up to 12 volunteers, stores two large free-standing tents for extra room or animal sheltering and has a 100-gallon water tank, one 14-foot johnboat, two inflatable boats and three outboard motors and a sling for lifting horses via helicopter.


For the mock disaster drill, volunteers surveyed the area in which they would be setting up the temporary shelter (below).


The drill was interesting. The assumption was that a flood had forced people — and their animals — from their homes.

The 31 participants were split up into five different groups, each having a particular function during exercise. There were four stations set up at the temporary shelter, which according to the scenario was located 2 miles from the shelter for humans. There was a station for taking animals into the shelter, one for distributing supplies, another for signing up and working with walk-in volunteers and one for actually sheltering the animals.

The fifth group was the public, an anguished, panicked group of people crazy with worry about their pets.

Almost nobody wants Trouble

Seems as if the person Leona Helmsley wanted to take care of her 8-year-old Maltese doesn't want the pooch. So says the New York Post.

Ahem.

I have room.

And I'm sure Kate would like a little sister.