By Maddy Vitale
Peter Avagliano loves his German shepherd Jake. He also is prepared to give him up.
In just months, Avagliano will return his 10½-month-old playful puppy to the place where he got him.
He also knows it is what is meant to be.
Avagliano, of Galloway Township, is a puppy raiser who works with The Seeing Eye, an organization in Morristown, N.J., that trains dogs to be companions for the sight-impaired.
He belongs to an organization called People & Puppies at Work for Sight, a group of puppy raisers from Cape and Atlantic counties who foster the puppies until they are ready for guide dog training from The Seeing Eye.
Avagliano, and a handful of other seeing eye puppy raisers, spoke during a program at the Ocean City Free Public Library on Saturday.
Maryann Hasher, who is blind, started off the program. She told the audience how she copes with daily life and offered tips and examples of useful items to help a person who is blind.
Then the audience, in the filled lecture hall, heard from Jacquie St. John, who brought along her therapy dog, Wesley, and Sandy Federoff, who demonstrated tricks her therapy dog Emmy does.
St. John and Wesley visit classrooms at the Davenport Elementary School in Egg Harbor Township.
Federoff and Emmy visit children in the Sandman Elementary School in Lower Township. They also visit nursing homes.
Federoff demonstrated for the crowd some tricks Emmy can do, including jumping through a hoop and pushing a shopping cart.
While some dogs who would one day help the blind and others were therapy dogs to comfort and entertain, they all had one goal in mind, to help people, the handlers said.
From puppy until about 15 months old, Jake will live with Avagliano. Jake will be trained on basic obedience and be socialized.
Then Jake will be go back to The Seeing Eye for the formal training to get him ready for his purpose in life, to be a seeing eye dog. Once placed, he will spend the next six to eight years providing comfort to a person and be his or her guide, Avagliano said.
“It is a very emotional day,” Avagliano said of the day he has to return a dog he has fostered. “But to know that he will go on to help someone and become that person’s whole life and give that person independence, makes the job we do rewarding.”
During the public portion of the program, audience members asked Avagliano who pays for the vetting when the dog is in the foster home as well as when the dog is placed.
Avagliano explained that puppy raisers get stipends for food and do not have to pay for the medical care. The Seeing Eye takes care of medical expenses while the dog is with the puppy raise and when placed.
He emphasized that The Seeing Eye organization is strictly funded through donations and does not receive any federal funding. The organization is always looking for donations and puppy raisers.
For Ocean City couple Laura and Ed Marciano, becoming puppy raisers seemed like the right thing to do. They are raising their ninth Labrador retriever for The Seeing Eye organization.
Laura Marciano explained that years ago, while working in a chiropractor’s office, she noticed one of the patients, who was sight-impaired, all scraped up and bloody.
“I asked her what had happened, and she said she lost her seeing eye dog. He was her best friend forever,” she noted. “He made her independent. She couldn’t walk the same with a cane and she hit her face. I knew then that I wanted to help.”
The seeing eye dogs are primarily German shepherds, Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and also standard poodles. The breeds are selected based on temperament, intelligence and ability to bond with their owner.
To produce a trained seeing eye dog it costs the seeing eye organization roughly $70,000. For a person to have a seeing eye dog, he or she must go through an extensive phone interview and application process, handlers said. The fee to the sight-impaired person is $150.
After a seeing eye dog is retired, the dog is often offered back to the puppy raiser. A dog could also go into another career as a therapy dog or with a law enforcement agency.
Adult Programming Librarian Julie Brown said she was thrilled with the turnout.
“It was a wonderful program and a really great learning experience.”
For more information about seeing eye dogs or to find out how to become a puppy raiser, visit The Seeing Eye at www.seeingeye.org. For more information about events at the Ocean City Free Public Library visit www.oceancitylibrary.org.
