Guiding Eyes for the Blind – Interview with Grace Ruggiero
Introduction: I had the chance to chat with Grace Ruggiero, a long-time home socializer for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, to learn about her experience as a volunteer.
Track: Grace has been a home socializer for the organization that provides guide dogs to people with vision loss.
Grace: I have been a home socializer for Guiding Eyes for the Blind since I was in kindergarten so I’ve been doing it for about 10 years.
Track: Becoming a home socializer is a great way to help out an important organization, and as Grace can attest to, a great way spend time with an adorable animal.
Grace: I was really interested in volunteering because I’ve always wanted a dog my whole life and my mom and my family saw this as a way to get that out of my system without actually getting a dog.
Track: Grace gets the opportunity to socialize two young puppies for about a week, and she is often the first person the puppy is going to after being born.
Grace: We get the puppies when they are about 6 weeks old that’s the bare minimum
Track: All home socializers for Guiding Eyes for the Blind must go through intense training in order to be able to handle young puppies and prepare them for seeing eye dog tests.
Grace: To become a home socializer we had to learn how to like to cope with the dogs’ emotions because some of them could be anxious because we’re getting them right from their mom.
Track: After being socialized by Grace or another home socializer, the puppies then have a long journey before becoming a full-time guide dog.
Grace: The puppies go to 2 more homes after they go to us and after that, they go to a pro socializer for about a year for intense training.
Track: Grace is very thankful to be able to volunteer for such a great organization while doing something she loves.
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/lile-ruggiero/guiding-eyes-journalism