Today is the birthday of Buddy, the first Seeing Eye® dog! A German shepherd, Buddy – originally named Kiss – was born October 15, 1926, in Vevey, Switzerland. The photo shows Buddy with Morris Frank.
Dorothy Harrison Eustis, who was born in Philadelphia, had moved to Switzerland where she founded a dog kennel and training facility called Fortunate Fields. There, Dorothy was breeding and training German shepherds to be used by the police and military. And if not for a letter from a young man from Tennessee, it’s likely Kiss would have been sent to a Swiss police station or military base… instead of changing the world!
Just as we do with our Seeing Eye puppies today, Kiss wasn’t raised in the kennel, but by a family living nearby. This gave Kiss an opportunity to explore her world, meeting different people and going different places… experiences that would serve her well in her coming years as a Seeing Eye dog.
Around the time Kiss was returned from her puppy raiser family to Fortunate Fields to begin her training, Dorothy published an article in The Saturday Evening Post about a school in Germany she had visited a couple years before, where German shepherds were being trained to guide soldiers who had been blinded in the first World War. The article was titled “The Seeing Eye.”
Morris Frank, a 19-year-old college student and insurance salesman living in Tennessee, had lost an eye in a childhood accident and was blinded in the other as a teenager. He wrote to Dorothy and asked: “Is what you say really true? If so, I want one of those dogs!” Dorothy had never trained a dog to guide a person who is blind – she had only visited the school – but asked her head trainer, Jack Humphrey, if he could do it. Jack said yes, but he’d also have to train the handler in how to work with the dog. He picked out two dogs to train in guiding, and one of them was Kiss.
Dorothy asked Morris if he would come to Switzerland to be instructed in how to work with and care for the dog.
“Mrs. Eustis,” Morris replied, “to get my independence back, I'd go to hell.”
Morris arrived in Vevey on April 25, 1928, and spent the next five weeks learning how to work with Kiss – whom he promptly renamed Buddy. On June 11, 1928, Morris and Buddy were met in New York City by reporters who didn’t believe a dog could really guide a blind person. Morris and Buddy astonished onlookers by boldly crossed the perilous West Street, proving that it could be done. He then sent Dorothy a one-word telegram: “SUCCESS.”
Happy birthday, Buddy!
Pretty she was the first ever. I love this story and Dorthy's willingness to try because without her there wouldn't be dog guide school and I would have never had Ori and wouldn't have Happe.
☆Kati
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