Community Corner

Cedar Hill Trains Seeing Eye Pups

Under school nurse Bonnie DiCola, the Montville elementary school has trained four Seeing Eye dogs.

Like the rest of the young people at Cedar Hill, Prince is at school to learn. He has daily lessons, gets downtime and receives praise for his good work.

Unlike the rest of the students, Prince is an 8-week old puppy.

The pure-bred golden retriever is part of the Seeing Eye’s Puppy Raising Program, a system in which puppies from the Seeing Eye guide dog school in Morristown are sent to foster families for training before they begin their formal stint as full-fledged seeing eye dogs.

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For school nurse , Prince is another in a long line of Seeing Eye dogs under her care.

“Prince is my 12thSeeing Eye puppy,” she said. “He’s the school’s fourth. Bringing them here is good because it gets them used to people and noise in an environment they wouldn’t necessarily get somewhere else."

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According to Cedar Hill principal Michael Raj, the school has been involved with the Seeing Eye program since the 2006-2007 school year.

“I raised a Seeing Eye puppy when I was in the Jefferson School district,” he said. “We got a great response from it there and it made sense to do it again here. With us, he can get exposure with the kids and get used to sounds and activity in a way that he couldn’t at home.”

DiCola keeps Prince in her office, where she works on teaching him commands that he will need to serve as a Seeing Eye dog later in life. DiCola said that the training is extensive: Seeing Eye dogs must be taught to do almost everything on command, including when to go to bathroom.

“They can’t stop to go to the bathroom while they are guiding someone, so they have to learn to hold it and go on command,” she said. “Right now, we’re working on commands like ‘Go to your place,’ which is telling him to lay down and ‘door,’ which means he must sit at a closed door.”

Raj said that an important part of training a Seeing Eye dog is to make sure it isn’t disturbed while it is being trained, something he says the students at Cedar Hill understand.

“It’s hard at first, but this is our fourth dog, so the kids are a little more used to it now,” he said. “Before the dog arrives, we go around to the classrooms and inform the students, then we ask them ‘OK, so what are the rules’ and they already know. They understand that his purpose isn’t to be our school play thing.”

Despite his strict regimen, DiCola says that students are still involved in training the puppy.

“We have guidelines in place for the children,” he said. “We bring him around to the classroom and let kids a get a look at him, but they know that he’s working. If a fifth grader gets good grades and does well, we let that student come in and feed Prince as a reward. It’s regarded pretty highly among the kids.”

According to Raj, the hard part on the children isn’t leaving the dog along as much as it is saying goodbye once its foster period is up.

“These dogs have such an impact on the kids,” he said. “It makes a lasting impact. When we had to give up our last dog, we began prepping the kids a few weeks before hand so they would know.”

Even for DiCola, on her 12th puppy, letting go can be hard.

“It doesn’t get easier,” she said. “Because no matter how many times you do this, it was still your dog.”

Still, DiCola says she has no plans to stop raising Seeing Eye puppies at Cedar Hill.

“As long as I can, I want to keep doing this,” she said. “It’s a big commitment, but the impact it has and the experience these dogs get here is wonderful.”


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