Love puppies? CNIB looking for foster families

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This article was published 27/04/2017 (3431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind is looking for a few good dog lovers.

The national agency for visually impaired Canadians has chosen Winnipeg, Toronto and Halifax as locations for foster families in its guide-dog program.

Prospective puppy parents must be over 18 and can expect to go through a screening process before the first of the pups arrive in Winnipeg late this year or early next year. CNIB expects to bring in a couple of pups at a time initially.

“We’re looking for people with comfortable and secure home environments where dogs can safely learn, play and explore. They have to be able to invest the time to train and socialize a puppy in a wide range of environments and situations, including bringing them to work if they’re employed,” Leonard Furber, the regional manager for CNIB in Manitoba, said.

CNIB covers all the costs of raising the pups, from the time they come into a foster family’s home at the age of about eight weeks until they are a year to 15 months old. At that point, the puppies will enter school, a formal guide dog training process that’s the final stage before they’re matched with owners.

Because prospective puppy parents will work closely and be overseen by CNIB experts in their guide-dog program, the agency is looking for people who are flexible and open-minded.

“They have to be willing to follow our puppy care and training philosophies,” Furber said.

The push to train guide dogs is part of the agency’s efforts to profile its 100th anniversary this year. There are nearly 500,000 blind or partially sighted Canadians outside of Quebec, but only 800 are active guide dog users. One of them is Veronika Kanya, who lost her sight completely to childhood diabetes. For the past 17 years, the Winnipegger has relied on guide dogs to help her. Her helper, an 11-year-old German shepherd named Winfrey, is approaching retirement age.

“For me, personally, I grew up with dogs, so to have a dog now is a blessing,” Kanya said.

Kanya said she’s not currently working, so Winfrey has a light workload.

“Once in a while, she comes with me to yoga class, but she doesn’t come with me to my martial arts classes. She doesn’t like the yelling,” Kanya chuckled.

“It’s her personality. She’s very particular.”

Kanya’s dogs are from a New York state-based guide-dog training school. There are four guide-dog training schools in Canada, not counting a French-language school in Quebec. The CNIB’s decision to launch its own training program is the result of feedback from visually impaired Canadians who say there’s room for another school here.

CNIB’s program was launched in Toronto earlier this week with a twist. It will be the only program to have trainers prepared to coach guide-dog owners in their own homes, a bonus for prospective owners who don’t have the money or the time to travel to, say, Toronto, for training to be matched with a dog.

So far, two pups from an approved breeder in Australia are with foster homes in the Toronto area. CNIB expects its dogs will mostly be golden retrievers or Black Labradors or a cross between the two, and they’re on the lookout for more breeders closer to home who meet their standards.

The first pups are expected to graduate from training and be matched with owners in late 2018 in Toronto.

Winnipeg and Halifax are the second phase, when the program expands beyond the Big Smoke. In Winnipeg, the first dogs are expected to graduate in late 2019. To learn more, visit cnib.ca or call 1-800-563-2642.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca