A new fluffy companion has entered the BHS campus! Freshman Khloe Olson is part of the Ridgecrest Guide Dog Club. She has gotten it approved by admin to bring a service dog named LaniJo into Science Teacher Melanie Branson’s fourth period Honors Bio class once a week.
LaniJo is a lab and she is only a year old, but she has been in training since almost birth to gain the experience required to guide a blind person.
“So far, she knows the basic commands, is potty trained, and has relatively good behavior in public,” said Olson. “We’re working on excitability with people and eating things off the ground with her. Listening to the raiser is part of it, too.”
Branson was very excited when Olson approached her about LaniJo. She actually had a puppy in training from the same organization when she was in high school. Branson thinks it’s a very worthy cause. Branson also has a special connection to service dogs.
“My daughter’s best friend in college was disabled and she had a service dog which was constantly being “harassed” by people and other dogs,” said Branson. “Despite trying to educate people around them, my daughter and her friend were constantly having to protect her service dog. It really ruined their day when they had a run-in with someone. This really opened my eyes to seeing the situation from the disabled person’s perspective. Her friend had to retire her service dog early which was traumatized by a dog attack.”
Some people forget that service dogs have a job to do. While it can be hard to resist giving them attention because they’re so cute, they can’t be distracted. It is pivotal to remember they need to be able to fully focus on assisting their human. If you really want to, you can approach the person and ask for permission to pet the dog. In the case that they say no, it’s because their animal is working!
Olson wants to train LaniJo further and spread awareness about how to properly interact with service dogs in the process.
“This will hopefully help LaniJo become accustomed to a work environment as well as being around a large group of people,” said Olson. “I will be able to better handle a dog in public and show my classmates how to act towards a service dog.”
Olson hopes to take her work with the program to the next level in the weeks to come.
“In the future, I would like to bring LaniJo to school on more days and to other class periods,” said Olson.
The Ridgecrest Guide Dog Club operates through Guide Dogs for the Blind, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising puppies to help blind or visually impaired in their daily lives. For raisers, this includes behavior training as well as socializing the dog, They go through more extensive training at the Guide Dog campus, where they learn how to live with and lead someone.
Learn more at https://www.guidedogs.com.
