You've probably seen blind people walking with their gentle four-legged guides—or “seeing-eye” dogs. 1 what you probably didn't know is that about 80 years ago, a doctor and his patient discovered this entirely 2!
Many people were killed or injured during World War I. Near the end of that war, Dr. Gerhard Stalling and his 3 walked with a patient—a German soldier who had been 4 —around hospital grounds in Germany.
While they were walking, the doctor was called away. The dog and the soldier stayed outside. A few moments later, when the doctor returned, the dog and the soldier were 5! Searching the paths worriedly, Dr. Stalling made an astonishing 6. His pet had led the soldier 7 around the hospital grounds. And together the two walked peacefully back toward the doctor.
8 by what his dog could do, Dr. Stalling set up the first 9 in the world to train dogs as guides. Dorothy Eustis, an American woman 10 as a dog trainer for the International Red Cross in Switzerland, was 11 to study the way Stalling trained dogs and spent several months in his school. She came away so impressed that she wrote a(n) 12 about it for the Saturday Evening Post in America.
A blind American man, Morris Frank, 13 the article and he wrote to Dorothy and asked if she could train a dog for him. Dorothy took up the 14, and trained a dog, Buddy. She brought Frank over to Switzerland to join her in the training 15. Frank went back to the US with what many believe to be America's first guide dog in 1928.
