Editing Guide dog (section)

==History==
[[File:Animal. Mr Thomas & his Seeing Eye Dog BAnQ P48S1P06211.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|A blind man with his guide dog in [[Montreal]], 1941]]

So far, the most ancient written reference to guide dogs yet dates back to the year 1247. [[Thomas of Celano]] quotes [[Saint Francis of Assisi]] as saying, "I saw at one time - he added - a blind man who in a path was led by a little she-dog." [Guerra, J. A. (ed.) San Francisco de Asís. Escritos. Biografías. Documentos de la época. Madrid. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos. 144.] Other references to service animals date at least as far back as the mid-16th century. The second line of the popular verse alphabet "A was an Archer" is most commonly "B was a Blind-man/Led by a dog".<ref>{{cite book|author=Opie, Iona |editor=Opie, Peter |title=The Webster Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes|location= Oxford|publisher= Oxford University Press|date= 1952}}</ref> In [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]]'s 19th-century verse novel ''[[Aurora Leigh]]'', the title character remarks, "The blind man walks wherever the dog pulls / And so I answered."<ref>{{cite book|author=Barrett Browning, Elizabeth|title=Aurora Leigh'', Book V.''|volume= ll|pages= 1028–9|author-link=Elizabeth Barrett Browning}}</ref> Guide dogs are also mentioned in Charles Dickens' ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'': "Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!{{'"}}

Evidence suggests that dogs may have been used as guides for the visually impaired based on depictions of a blind-man being guided by his dog on the wall of a house in [[Herculaneum]], buried when [[Mount Vesuvius|Vesuvius]] erupted in 79 CE.<ref>G. A. Fishman, "When your eyes have a wet nose: the evolution of the use of guide dogs and establishing the seeing eye", ''Survey of Ophthalmology'', vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 452–458, Jul. 2003, {{doi|10.1016/S0039-6257(03)00052-3}}.</ref><ref name=Eschner>{{cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=Eschner |first2=Kat |title=The Cuddly Tail of Guide Dogs |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/guide-dog-tail-180964302/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en |date=August 7, 2017}}</ref> This and other visual depictions indicate that dogs have been common companions for the blind for thousands of years. Additional material evidence would be required to positively assess their use specifically as guides.

The first service dog training schools were established in Germany during [[World War I]], to enhance the mobility of returning veterans who were blinded in combat. Interest in service animals outside of Germany did not become widespread until [[Dorothy Harrison Eustis]], an American dog breeder living in Switzerland, wrote a first-hand account about a service animal training school in [[Potsdam, Germany]], that was published in ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' in 1927. That same year, United States Senator [[Thomas D. Schall]] of Minnesota was paired with a service animal imported from Germany,<ref>{{cite book|author=Putnam, Peter Brock| title=Love in the Lead: The Miracle of the Seeing Eye Dog|edition= 2nd|publisher=University Press of America|date= 1997|page= 20}}</ref> who was trained by the owner of LaSalle Kennels, Jack Sinykin of Minnesota.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=OGzxAAAAMAAJ&q=lasalle+kennels+sinykin&pg=PA51 |title=The Jewish Veteran|date=1938|publisher=Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America |page=7 |language=en|chapter=Twin-Cities Jew First in America to Train Dogs to Lead the Blind}}</ref>

The service animal movement did not take hold in America until Nashville resident [[Morris Frank]] returned from Switzerland after being trained with one of Eustis's dogs, a female German shepherd named Buddy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Through Buddy's Eyes |url=https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2010/12/06/through-buddys-eyes/ |website=Vanderbilt News |publisher=Vanderbilt University |access-date=19 June 2021}}</ref> Frank and Buddy embarked on a publicity tour to convince Americans of the abilities of service animals and the need to allow people with service animals access to public transportation, hotels, and other areas open to the public. In 1929, Eustis and Frank co-founded [[The Seeing Eye]] school in [[Nashville, Tennessee]] (relocated in 1931 to [[New Jersey]]).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gduc.ca/gduc/mygduc/articleDisplay.asp?idArticle=71 |title=Guide Dog Users of Canada - History of Guide Dogs |publisher=Guide Dog Users of Canada|access-date=3 November 2016|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161104014042/https://gduc.ca/gduc/mygduc/articleDisplay.asp?idArticle=71 |archive-date=4 November 2016}}</ref>

The first service animals in Great Britain were German Shepherds. Four of these first were Flash, Judy, Meta, and Folly, who were handed over to their new owners, veterans blinded in World War I, on 6 October 1931 in [[Wallasey]], [[Merseyside]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Hughes |first=Lorna |url=http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/dog-walk-marks-80th-anniversary-3362267 |title=Dog walk marks 80th anniversary of first guide dogs in Wallasey |work=Liverpool Echo |access-date=17 June 2016}}</ref> Judy's new owner was Musgrave Frankland.<ref>[http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/browse/381/412/1639/3/15 Article]{{subscription required}}, ''The London Paper'' at exacteditions.com</ref><ref name="GD UK History">{{cite web|url= https://d3qkb2hv043xyy.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/gdmain/user/About_us/History/Documents/AboutUs_historyofGuideDogs.doc |title=The History of Guide Dogs in Britain|publisher=[[The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association]]|access-date=26 September 2012|format=Microsoft Word document|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130921054300/https://d3qkb2hv043xyy.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/gdmain/user/About_us/History/Documents/AboutUs_historyofGuideDogs.doc |archive-date=21 September 2013}}</ref> In 1934, [[The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association]] in Great Britain began operation, although their first permanent trainer was a Russian military officer, Captain [[Nikolai Liakhoff]], who moved to the UK in 1933.<ref name="GD UK History" />

[[Elliott S. Humphrey]] was an animal breeder who trained the first guide dogs for the blind used in the United States. Humphrey was hired to breed German shepherds at a centre in Switzerland that had been set up by Dorothy Harrison Eustis of Philadelphia and began the work that led to the Seeing-Eye Dog program.

The first dogs produced at the centre, known as Fortunate Fields, were used for military and police work and for tracking missing persons. Then Humphrey trained German shepherds to guide the blind.

The Germans had developed a guide dog program during World War I, but Mr. Humphrey devised different procedures and it is his that are followed in the United States.<ref>{{Cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/11/obituaries/elliott-humphrey-92-pioneered-in-tutoring-of-guide-dogs-in-us.html |title=Elliott Humphrey, 92; Pioneered in Tutoring of Guide Dogs in U.s.|last=Treaster|first=Joseph B.|date=1981-06-11|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-08-20 |language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>