By raising Seeing Eye dogs, junior Lauren Christie finds a unique way to make a difference.

    With a willingness to help others and a strong love for dogs, junior Lauren Christie finds a way to make a difference in the community by raising Seeing Eye dogs.
    Christie and her family receive the dogs from the Seeing Eye when the puppies are about seven weeks old.  From there, Christie and her family begin to housebreak them and teach them basic commands.
    "We get them used to living at home, and then when they are four months old we are allowed to take them to stores and socialize them in public places; that is basically our main job - that and loving them," said Christie.
    When the dogs are 16 to 18 months old, they go back to the Seeing Eye for their formal training and a health exam. 
    If they pass the test, they get assigned to a trainer and go through four months of extensive training.  After that, they are matched with a blind person and the two go into training classes for about three to four weeks.  "After all the training, [the person and the dog] leave and have a good life," said Christie.
    In the last step of training, Christie gets to see the dog actually guiding the trainer.  "It's just really amazing because you have this goofy, crazy dog that is actually doing something amazing," said Christie, "but I do miss them when they go back." 
    There are several perks that come with raising Seeing Eye dogs.  "You can change someone's life," said Lauren's mom Kate Christie, "And that makes all the difference in the world."  After a while, the dogs learn something called intelligent disobedience, which is where the dog has to make sure that the command given by the blind person is safe.  "If the command is to cross the street and it is unsafe to cross the street at that time, then the dog needs to be aware of it," said Christie. 
    Commands, however, are not the only things Seeing Eye dogs use.  "A lot of people think that dogs have commands for everything when really it's kind of just judgment most of the time," said Christie, "Since the blind person obviously can't see, they can't tell them to do stuff.  The dog has to learn to do it on their own."
    Christie and her family have a major role in the process to train a Seeing Eye dog.  "We basically teach basic commands and get them used to going out places because that's really the most important thing.  They cannot be afraid of anything when they are guiding because they could be placed in situations that they have never seen before.  Our job is to get them used to any situation they could be in," said Christie.
    Christie and her family are raising two dogs now.  "Pumpkin is about 14 months old, so she'll be going back in a couple of months, but Rosina is only 10 weeks old.  She's still a baby, so she can't really go anywhere yet.  She's pretty good with housebreaking right now though.  We can take her out in public, but we can't really let people touch her cause she hasn't had all her shots yet," said Christie.
    The selection process is very delicate when it comes to distributing the dogs. According to Christie, when the dogs go back to the Seeing Eye, she and her family write a report about the dog and its personality.  When the trainers have them, they learn about their personality and then try to match the right person to the right dog.  "A lot of times with height, they try to match with the tall people a bigger dog.  They also try to match the walking pace; like if the dog walks fast they will go with the person who walks fast," said Christie.
    There are many myths about Seeing Eye dogs that aren't true.  "Strangely enough, people think [dogs] read traffic lights.  They can't read traffic lights because they are colorblind," said Christie, "They watch the traffic, which makes more sense."
     Even though they are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference between guide dogs and Seeing Eye dogs. 
    "A lot of people refer to guide dogs as Seeing Eye dogs.  Seeing Eye dogs are only guide dogs from the Seeing Eye, which is a guide dog school.  There are other guide dogs like leader dogs and guiding eyes for the blind," said Christie.