CHINA: Dogs are being trained for next year's Paralympics to assist the visually impaired in Dalian, Liaoning Province

Located in China's Northeastern Liaoning province, the Dalian Guide Dog Training Centre is giving out guide dogs for free to the blind. But now, they have a more ambitious goal - to equip the Chinese blind athletes with guide dogs at next year's Paralympics Games in Beijing. Getting around Beijing, a city of millions which will host next year's Olympic Games, is difficult enough without being visually impaired and the centre hopes its seeing-eye dogs will help. The centr e was founded two years ago in Dalian Medical University. Five puppies were chosen from a local animal market and were raised in the centr e till they were strong enough to be trained. Labrador and golden retrievers are the main breeds train ed as these dogs are smart, calm and their size suits the job. The training center also has its own breeding center. Because of the lack of financial help from donators, right after dogs are born, they are fostered in volunteers' homes till the age of 10 months. The training needs about eight months to complete and qualified trainees go to blind people and become their second pair of eyes. Song Yanan has been working for the center since day one. Her salary of $150 is only enough for her to make a meagre living but she said it was the challenge that kept her here. "There is little said about guiding dogs in the media (in China). This is something new and it only existed in China for a very short period of time till today. Many people never thought of donating money in this. They never knew that we needed a lot of financial help," Song said. Training guide dogs is something that's still unheard of in most parts of China. The center relies on one pet food company to provide part of the dog food for free and occasional funding. The founder of the training center, Dr. Wang Jingyu, studied animal behavior in Japan for nine years. Wang spent almost all of his savings to run the center but now he needs more for this charitable work. Liang Jianlong, a 24-year-old medicine major, has been working here for ten months. He said with the amount of money they had now, they won't be able to send many dog to 2008 Beijing Paralympics Games. "We are heading to the Olympics also because we want to use this platform to promote guiding dogs so more people would know about the guiding dogs and their usefulness to human beings. We want more attention paid to the life of the blind. If we are only training for next year's Games, it's too simple and parochial," Liang said. There are currently six full-time and four part-time trainers in the training center. Most of them studied animal behavior related majors in university. The visually impaired can apply to the China Disabled Persons' Federation. Once approved, they will get their own guide dog. But demand far exceeds supply.

ITN Source | September 16, 2007

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