Stephen Kuusisto has been blind since birth, and he didn’t grow up in a time (or household) that accepted or accommodated his disability. Later in life, he partnered up with a guide dog, Corky, which opened up doors for greater adventure and independence. We discuss his memoir “Have Dog, Will Travel,” guide dogs, stereotypes about blindness and more with Mayo Clinic expert Dr. Brittni Scruggs. This episode was made possible by the generous support of Ken Stevens.
Stephen Kuusisto has been blind since birth, and he didn’t grow up in a time (or household) that accepted or accommodated his disability. Later in life, he partnered up with a guide dog, Corky, which opened up doors for greater adventure and independence. We discuss his memoir “Have Dog, Will Travel,” guide dogs, stereotypes about blindness and more with Mayo Clinic expert Dr. Brittni Scruggs.
This episode was made possible by the generous support of Ken Stevens.
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Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey Transcript
Dr. Denise Millstine:Welcome to the “Read. Talk. Grow.” podcast, where we explore health topics through books. In the same way that books can transport us to a different time, place, or culture, “Read. Talk. Grow.” demonstrates how they can also give us a new appreciation for health experiences. Books can provide understanding of health topics and provide a platform from which these health topics can be discussed.
At “Read. Talk. Grow.,” we use books to learn about health in the hopes that we can all lead happier, healthier lives. I'm your host, Dr. Denise Millstine. I'm an assistant professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic, where I practice women's health, internal medicine, and integrative medicine. I am always reading and I love discussing books with my patients, my friends, my professional colleagues, and now with you.
I am so excited about our book today, which is “Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet's Journey” by Stephen Kuusisto. Our topic today is vision loss and assistance with guide dogs. Professor Stephen Kuusisto has been blind since birth. He's the author of “Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening” and the acclaimed memoir, “Planet of the Blind,” a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Stephen has made numerous appearances on programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dateline NBC, National Public Radio and the BBC. His newest memoir is “Have Dog, Will Travel.” He has spent much of his career working with guide dogs and also as a college professor.
Stephen, welcome to the show.
Stephen Kuusisto: Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here.
Dr. Denise Millstine: Dr. Brittni Scruggs is a board-certified adult and pediatric vitreous retinal surgeon and assistant professor of ophthalmology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her clinical expertise includes retinal diseases. She is one of the principal investigators in the Mayo Retinal Regenerative Medicine Laboratory. She also studies the optimization of gene therapy and cell-based therapy in patients with retinal degeneration. She's a clinical educator.
Brittni, welcome to the show.
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Denise Millstine: “Have Dog, Will Travel” is a poet's memoir about being an adult who had minimized and attempted to hide his visual impairment for decades. He's now exploring his ability to live independently by partnering with a guide dog. Stephen’s memoir depicts his training to work with his first guide dog, Corky, as well as the myriad of emotions that follow when his world is cracked open and more accessible.
Stephen, your writing is beautiful. Thank you for putting this book into the world. It's been about 30 years since you started working with Corky. Does it seem like it was yesterday?
Stephen Kuusisto: Yeah. You know, it really does. Maybe that's the poetry part of it, right? The poetry always puts us in the present moment of wonder and astonishment. I think of this as a love poem to Corky and to all guide dogs and service animals everywhere. So I'm often in that moment of wonder. In the book, there's a moment where I decide to go to New York City after getting Corky, having been through the training. And they tell you at the guide dog school, don't go anywhere beyond your own backyard for about three months, just so you get used to working together in your own neighborhood and everything. And instead, I immediately went to New York City. I just couldn't wait, you know, to have independence, to ride the subways, go to a Mets game, go to the jazz clubs, head out to Coney Island.
I mean, I just I've been waiting for this moment of security and independence it seemed all my life, every day, I remember that moment of just complete liberation.
Dr. Denise Millstine: And for our listeners who haven't read the book, you were not living in New York City or anything even closely resembling this. New York City is huge for anybody who doesn't live there. But it was a huge transition for you to be able to explore that.
Brittni, tell us your reaction to the book, and also, could you help our listeners understand what it's like to be a vitreoretinal surgeon?
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: Yeah, thanks for the question. So I absolutely loved the book. I actually teared up many times, including the very last page. It was heartfelt and just a wonderful reminder of things that we as ophthalmologists need to be talking about with our patients. And there was a moment in the book where it was very clear that many ophthalmologists, and I think it was even said by you, Stephen, like, we take the keys and we say, “I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do for you,” and then we send them home. Right. To potentially build anxiety and depression and they don't have hope in those instances.
So as a retinal surgeon, I am a surgeon. I'm a clinician. But first and foremost, I need to listen to my patients and I need to give them options and hope. And this book is just such an amazing reminder. And one of the things I wrote down that I just thought was so powerful from you, Stephen, was that this gave you a dog-driven invitation to live your life full forward, which I wish all of my patients had that experience. So that's the answer to how I like the book. I very much loved every page of it.
As a vitreoretinal surgeon, my life is very full and rewarding. I see patients in clinic. I do surgeries in the operating room. I split my time 50% seeing children, 50% seeing adults. I take care of babies in the neonatal ICU doing retinopathy of prematurity examinations and treatments, laser surgeries, and then, you know, making sure that we are treating retinopathy early and potentially giving people vision for life.
And then I have a dedicated clinic every week for inherited retinal diseases. And oftentimes those diseases are complex and progressive. Oftentimes people do lose most, if not all, of their vision.
Stephen Kuusisto: Yeah.
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: And we're starting to get to a point where we can treat some of them. I mean, you mentioned I'm a gene therapy surgeon, so I do surgeries where we are starting to cure blindness, which is really amazing. But I don't always have the magic solution to cure. And so sometimes we have to be creative. We have to partner with occupational therapists and social workers and low vision specialists, and the state services and Foundation Fighting Blindness. And the list goes on and on and on.
And I think one thing that maybe we don't think about often is these guide dog training schools, “dog college,” as you so fondly remembered. Yeah. I'm so thrilled to talk about this. This is something that's really important to me.
Stephen Kuusisto: Well, you're my hero. And all people who follow in your path are my heroes. Retinopathy of prematurity was, of course, very prevalent in the 1950s when I was born. It still persists today. Obviously, working on the front and finding ways to cure blinding eye diseases is critically important. For the general public who might be listening to this, we are closer now than ever before in history to being able to solve blinding eye diseases. And the work of gene therapies and new technologies is bringing that hoped-for end game ever closer.
One of the things I like to say to eye doctors is that the worst thing you can tell a patient who is losing vision or has lost it is, “I'm sorry, there's nothing more I can do for you.” And there are three reasons why that's the case. One is that it sends that patient away and they simply won't follow up with eye care. Even people who have lost vision need eye care. Two, the landscape of what we can do, right, as medical professionals and advocates in curing or resolving eye disease, this is changing at a really, really supersonic speed. And so we want those people to be connected, because what happened yesterday may not be the case in terms of predicting what will happen tomorrow when it comes to curing blinding eye diseases. And the third reason is you just simply don't want to say that as a medical professional to anybody, right? You want to honor the whole being and that whole being is not just a patient. They're also a father, a sister, a brother, a child, your neighbor. Right. So those are my sort of three steps in thinking about the remarkable moment that we're in.
I was at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop teaching nonfiction writing from 2008 to 2011, before moving to an appointment here at Syracuse University. But I worked very closely there with Dr. Edwin Stone and his team, doing amazing research in the very areas that you're working, right to gene therapy. You know, let's cure this thing, right? And I don't think the average citizen knows how close we really are. So that's just a little boosterism for contemporary, ophthalmology and ophthalmic surgeons.
If we lived in Finland, where my family comes from. If you go to the ophthalmologist and you've become a person with serious vision loss, one of the advantages of being in a country with organized health care and social services is that you don't fall between the cracks. So the ophthalmologist can tell you about the guide dog school and about the technology, and about the job retraining, and connect you with everybody. And we don't have that in the United States. Really. I'd love to see us get to that point, but we don't. We have state agencies. We have private agencies. We have guide dog schools. We have, but none of them are connected. There's no central portal, so people can disappear. They can go a long time without knowing what's available for them. Like guide dogs, for instance, are free. Anybody can get one who has, you know, is legally blind.
Dr. Denise Millstine: I think maybe you need to say that again, “Guide dogs are free.” You make a comment….
Stephen Kuusisto: Yeah. Guide dogs are free. And there are 12 guide dog schools in the United States. They're all 501c3 nonprofits. They're all fabulous. The first was called The Seeing Eye — they’re in Morristown, New Jersey. Hence, we get that term “seeing eye dog.” But then there's also Guide Dogs for the Blind, they’re in San Rafael, California, just outside of San Francisco. Guiding Eyes for the Blind, where I have gotten my guide dogs, is just outside of New York City. There's also a fabulous guide dog school in Michigan called Leader Dogs for the Blind. I think they're in Rochester (Hills), Michigan, and then there are another six or seven that are really, really good. And they're all free.
Dr. Denise Millstine: Which is so important for this population. I'm going to hit pause for one second because, Brittni, I want to make sure our listeners understand what visual impairment, what blindness is. I think there's a misconception that blindness is complete absence of sight or seeing black. But this is not accurate for many patients and would you just describe what that experience is?
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the question. There are definitely misconceptions around this concept and definition, and there are actually several definitions of legal blindness. One is what people think of as visual acuity and what you can see on the chart, right? And so if you're 20/200 or worse in your better seeing eye, then it meets the definition of legal blindness. And for the audience 20/200; what that means is that you are standing at 20 feet from the chart, whereas a sighted person with no issues could stand at 200 feet and see the same sign with the same clarity. So that's what that number means.
But visual acuity isn't the only part of vision. You also think about the actual peripheral fields and how much visual fields a patient has. So someone could actually be 20/20, which means their central vision is perfectly clear. And they have good clarity right in the center. But they could be missing all of their peripheral field and be looking essentially through a straw. And that also is legal blindness, because they have constricted peripheral fields that meet the legal standard.
So and then there everything in between of, you know. I think in the book, Stephen, you mentioned that your vision loss is kind of like looking through Vaseline and you still can see things. You can still kind of guide and with a lot of effort, see colors and shapes and objects. So complete blindness does not mean lights out and it means something different for every single person.
Dr. Denise Millstine: I think this was also very well depicted. Stephen, when later in the book you’re walking through the woods with Corky and somebody who observes you actually starts a rumor or comments that you're not really blind because you were walking with Corky with a leash. And I suspect this is not an uncommon issue when you're walking with a guide dog, that people are suspicious when they can see you reading a sign or reacting to something.
Stephen Kuusisto: Most blind people that I know have been, you know, accosted by someone saying, you don't look blind. I think the cultural idea is that you're groping, you know, you don't know how to find your way from one side of the room to the other, this kind of thing. I've never met that blind person. So, you know. Yeah, that's part of that dynamic, right? That working with a guide dog, you're really confident and you're really going fast.
Dr. Denise Millstine: Can you talk, Stephen, about your early life experience, where you essentially were hiding your blindness, that you came up with a number of strategies, including only being in familiar places or taking risks like playing chicken with your life, essentially, and why that felt necessary and how walking with the cane and then having a guide dog was so different because like you said, now people see a visual cue that this person is visually impaired. Can you talk about how you changed in that way?
Stephen Kuusisto: So in the book, I describe some of the prevalent cultural dynamics of America in the ‘50s and early ‘60s when it comes to thinking about disability and popular cultural representation of disability. Disability was seen as a tremendous misfortune, not just one of the dynamics of living a life. It was seen as a life-ending tragedy. And I describe, for instance, those film shorts from the ‘50s where Raymond Massey plays the sinister “Crippler,” who, you know, gives polio to children in the playground. They used to show this at the movies, right? You know, while people were still sitting and getting their seats. It takes a long time for that kind of stuff to go away in a culture. I don't know what the half-life is, but it's still prevalent, right? The disability is a terrible misfortune.
My mother was a New England Yankee of a certain type; irreverent, tough-minded, nobody's going to tell her what to do. These are virtues in some cases but she also had that “disability is a terrible misfortune” sensibility. And so while my parents would acknowledge that I was legally blind, they didn't get me any help. The notion was that I would go ride a bike and I would do what other kids did, which I was adept at doing, but I didn't learn how to travel independently. I didn't learn how to ask for help. I didn't learn dignity. I didn't learn self-respect. Sometimes the stuff that really matters is on the inside, right? And I didn't get the social nutrition for the inside.
I also describe in “Have Dog, Will Travel,” that I got caught up trying to help my mother, who was a severe alcoholic, and I spent an awful lot of time in my early adult years trying to fix her. That's a really, really common story in America. Millions of people know that story. And it wasn't until I really decided that it was time to focus on me. I went to Al-Anon. I realized I couldn't fix her, but I could try to fix me. Right? I didn't know how to go places. I didn't know how to be independent. I was frightened of going places. I led a really small life. Well, I had enough of an education to know that's no way to live. And that's when I reached out to the guide dog school, which transformed everything. I mean, really.
But, yeah, this was the residue of the ‘50s. And remember, you know, the ADA didn't happen until I was 30, 38, 30, I don't know, 35, you know, so a lot of my life was lived before there were rights of any kind or acknowledgment that the disabled should be part of society. Right.
Dr. Denise Millstine: The ADA being the Americans with Disabilities Act, which many of our younger listeners might think has always been in place. But in fact, that is not the case.
Stephen Kuusisto: I had a professor in graduate school in 1982 to say that if I was blind, I couldn't be in his class. That's eight years before the ADA, right?
Dr. Denise Millstine: Wow.
Stephen Kuusisto: These things were prevalent, you know. So disability is still complex. It's still something that you have to navigate with. But I think we're smarter, better and more flexible, more nuanced and more thoughtful as a culture than we were when I was a child.
Dr. Denise Millstine: All right, let's talk about the dogs, Brittni. Stephen arrives at the training center thinking he's going to be handed a dog who knows some commands, and then be on his way. Their interactions are much more complex. When you're talking with patients about considering starting to work with a guide dog, is this a common misconception that you're seeing?
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: Yeah. Honestly, this book taught me a lot. I feel way more empowered as a physician to have these conversations now. So first and foremost, thank you.
You know, I don't think that I knew how to have these conversations very well. I did watch a few documentaries a few years ago, which sounds ridiculous, but it did actually help me a lot understand how the training happened. And I think from watching those documentaries that informed me. So my conversations have kind of been better in the last few years, but it's a complex conversation.
And honestly, patients who have progressive or blinding retinal diseases, these are long appointments because you have a lot to talk about, right? You have to talk about not only the pathophysiology of the disease and why this is happening, what the prognosis says, but whether or not there's treatment. Do I need to sign them up for surgery? Do laser? If there's not treatment, then what services do they need? And then to talk about guide dog training and the complexities of that adds even more to the conversation.
So honestly, a lot of my job is to prime them, give them the options, and then partner with people who can sit down and have these really long, meaningful conversations. And we have a low vision service at Mayo. We partner with a lot of people who can sit down, and this is complex. And it's not a “you can get a dog, here's the number.” We want you to feel like you are making an informed decision because this is a life-changing event. And there's one way that you describe your transition from living your life trying so hard to be fiercely independent, but not necessarily having the resource to do so safely. And then that transition to the dog. You said that you simply decided to breathe differently. And I really loved how you put that. But you also have to have this powerful system around you where you have support. And you know what you're getting yourself into. You have to put your life on hold to do the training. Your whole house is now a completely different your way of life is different. So a lot of my patients can't do this. They can't put themselves in a situation that they can go through this training. Maybe my conversations will be different moving forward.
I would love to hear from you, Stephen. For people who are living busy lives, how can we potentially empower them to go through this really meaningful experience knowing it's life changing but really difficult? Right. The training was really hard for you. It was like you went through school.
Stephen Kuusisto: Yeah, I think I called it a kibbutz at one point.
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: You did it twice, actually.
Stephen Kuusisto: Yeah. Yeah. You go to the guide dog school and you're, you know, that you spend a couple of days with the trainers who have trained your dog just walking around and talking, and they're getting to know you. And then, of course, there's a moment where you're paired with the dog that they have trained that they think best matches your circumstances. Are you a fast walker? I am. Do you want to go to urban areas and travel a lot? Do you fly a lot? You know, these sorts of things. They want to know that. They want you to have the dog that is going to be equal to your pace, but also relish, you know, going strange places. And some people, they don't want to go beyond their own neighborhood, and they're still going to get a dog that can go to New York City or fly on an airplane, but there are dogs that are more likely to relish that, right? That kind of busy, energetic lifestyle.
So they gave me Corky. Corky was extremely fast. In fact, she had gone out with another blind person and he had to return her because she was too fast. So I was Corky’s second date. All my guide dogs have been speedy. So that's a circumstance, right. They’re looking to try to pair you with the right partner. Because you're going to be partners. You're going to be dancing partners, it's like “Dancing with the Stars.”
But then there are these other issues too. They want to make sure that you and the dog really bond. The guide dog trainers call it “turning over.” The dog turns over its allegiance from its trainer, who it's gotten very close to, to really liking its new human partner. You know, that can happen within a matter of days, as it did with me and Corky. It might take a couple of weeks, maybe it'll take three months, right? The person goes home and the dog is still a little unsure about this person. Who knows? But that turning over really has to happen. That closeness has to happen. You have to become a six-legged creature.
Some people go to the guide dog school and discover after a week or so of training that this isn't for them and there's no harm, no foul, right? I mean, the guide dog school puts you back on the plane and sends you home. They pay for your travel. They pay for everything. So you know you don't feel right. You know, this isn't for you. You just, that's fine.
The other thing is that they are really trying to make sure because no two people who are blind are blind in the same way, nor do they experience it the same way. Right. So they have to know how to make sure that the training isn't routinized and standardized, but is basically built around the person's life. They want that dog to fit you like a glove. Right. And that's really important.
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: I think it's really important to hear, for patients to hear, right, that this is kind of tailored to their life and that if it doesn't work out then they can try and if it doesn't work out, it's okay. I think that's really important for people to hear.
Stephen Kuusisto: It's really, and if you get home and it doesn't work out for whatever reason, they’ll just come and get the dog. There should be no reason to not give it a try.
The other thing is that these are guide dogs. They are raised and trained in circumstances. They're good with other pets. They're good with children. They're good with distractions.
One of the funniest things is to see guide dogs in training, having to walk through a gauntlet of dropped pizza slices and ignore them, right? This is not your standard house pet. So they're really flexible and mission focused. They make great house pets when they're off duty, but they're also remarkably buoyant, confident. I think that's the thing that's most characteristic of guide dogs is their confidence level. They have to be supremely confident. There's a moment in training where they realize, wow, I'm the one responsible for deciding whether we cross the street or not. I mean, the human being makes the decision. Let's go. The dog double checks.
Dr. Denise Millstine: I want to emphasize that because that, I think was surprising to me and surprising to you, Stephen. When you got there, the dog is not leading you. You are going where you intend to go. There's a great line in the book where one of the people says, you have to know how to set the compass, otherwise a guide dog is just a faster way to get lost.
Stephen Kuusisto: Correct.
Dr. Denise Millstine: So their role is to scan, to make sure you're safe, to throw on the brakes when something's happening, like a car is coming really fast or there's a gap in the sidewalk, something like this. And you do describe some very clear examples where you would have gone, and Corky literally saved your life by not letting you step up.
So sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to emphasize that that's a key point. You're going where you're going. You're the person in charge, but they're scanning for you, have that peripheral vision, have that incredible skill and training to know when something's not right.
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: I was just going to ask a quick question, partly for the audience, partly for me. A lot of times in the book, you talked about the harness, like getting the harness on and making sure that you could do that. You could do that quickly. Take it on, take it off. Is that really the moment that the dog goes on duty?
Stephen Kuusisto: Yes
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: Like, when the harness is not on, it's a fun loving experience, like it's a house dog. And then as soon as the harness goes on, it's a work dog.
Stephen Kuusisto: Exactly. It's a stunning transition. Harness on, the dog is at attention, ready to work. You know, it'll ignore everybody else in the room. It's ready to go. Harness off, man. It's just, you know, a regular German Shepherd or Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, ready for happy hijinx. It's just a complete transition.
It's also the case that, they call it intelligent disobedience. The dog is not going to do something that isn't, in fact, in its own interest. So if I'm standing on West 52nd Street in New York and there is an enormous amount of traffic and there are bicycle messengers. They are the new lethal thing, by the way for pedestrians, bicycle messengers who run red lights. They obey no known laws of, you know, civilization, and they're often moving as fast as they possibly can.
So my guide dog, Caitlin here saved me from a bicycle messenger a few months ago. I'm in New York, we're walking down Fifth Avenue. We're crossing around 22nd Street, maybe, and I'm halfway across the street. I've got the light. And this bicycle messenger comes out of nowhere. And she yanks me backwards at very high speed. The harness has no slack in it. So when she moves, you move. And that bicycle messenger missed us just by inches. The dog has greater peripheral vision than we do because they're predators. They have the capacity to watch for movement. So was she saving me or was she saving herself? Right.
Dr. Denise Millstine: Does it matter?
Stephen Kuusisto: It doesn't matter. Right. It is true, though, that if I'm standing on the street corner and I say, let's go, because I think I've got the traffic flow, that dog is not going to go if she sees something that I have no clue about. Right. And that can certainly happen, especially in New York City, where you get these wind canyons between skyscrapers and you actually, that can function kind of like sound reduction headphones. There are places where you really don't hear the traffic. I can tell you a famous one. It's on Fifth Avenue at Eighth Street, the wind blows from the Hudson River to the East River, and it just moves through there. And you can't, you really don't hear anything.
Dr. Denise Millstine: So you're really relying on the dog. Brittni, I really like that question, because I think a lot of people will approach somebody with a guide dog thinking they should pet them, or that they're drawn to the dog. And you describe in the book quite clearly why, when the dog is working, even if you consider yourself some sort of savant or a dog whisperer, you are to respect the role of that dog, because what they're doing is really important and actually really hard, and it takes all of their senses. Did I summarize that okay, Stephen?
Stephen Kuusisto: I think you're perfect. Yeah. No. That's right. Sometimes people will walk up to me and say, what's your dog's name? And I say, Elvis. Wow. That dog's really well trained. Yeah, I know, you know. Yeah, I know people, people don't understand. And, you know, I mean, I used to get really angry about that. I did, but as I grow older, I realize it's a deep human need to engage with animals. And you just got to be. You just kind of see the dogs working and you just. You don't have to have a three-alarm fire in your head about it. you know, mostly the guide dog is going to ignore people anyway. Right. It's working. It's just not going to pay attention to them.
Dr. Denise Millstine: But it doesn't need that one more distractor. And you even use the term in the book that you're a type of celebrity when you're out with your guide dog. I wonder if that's still the case in 2024. Though in 1994, I can imagine that was absolutely the case. Many people might have never seen a guide dog, but I think still.
Stephen Kuusisto: It's still the case. I went to a Mets game last week in New York. Mets versus the Red Sox. Big crowd. A lot of fun. But man, I mean every, every seventh person I met, you know, wanted to talk about the dog and, you know, wanted to know about it. And a state cop bought me a Coke. It's still the case. The guide dog is a remarkable thing.
You guys work at Mayo, you can, maybe you have better data than I do, but there aren't that many blind people. I mean, it's a low incidence disability compared to, you know, spinal cord injury or other disabilities. I mean, consequently, you know, the guide dog occupies the space in the public's imagination, but you don't really meet that many of guide dog teams. They're kind of unique, right?
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: I would love to see more of my patients have guide dogs. So I am curious when talking about this and patients are potentially considering going this route, what could they do to be prepared logistically? What's the age cutoff for getting a dog? Can you get to go through like just how you would prepare someone to go through this experience?
Stephen Kuusisto: There is no age limit. If you're mobile and you're still moving around the world, you know, 85, 90, nope, that there's no age limit. There is a younger age limit. I think it used to be you had to be 18 to get a guide dog. I think they will now train a guide dog for someone still in high school. But there's a maturity level that they really want to make sure is there. Right. So that because you have to look after the dog and that's routinized, right. The dog is on a schedule; 7:00am breakfast, take the dog out and make sure it's got water during the day. Take it out. You know, you have to take it out several times a day. It gets dinner at four. You know, everything is structured and you got to be able to do that. You know, it's your mom isn't going to do that for you, right? So if you're not a mature enough high school kid, you're not going to be ready to take on the, you know, the responsibility of one of these dogs.
Well, I say the guide dog is free. The two years of breeding, raising, training, flying the customer in, the client in, lifetime veterinary care, follow up, all of that stuff. That's easily $50,000 worth of investment per dog. They absorb all of it, but they don't want to give you a dog if you're not ready to handle it.
They also do home visits so that when you apply for a guide dog, they're going to come see you wherever you live. All 50 states, many foreign countries, they do come see you at home.
The reason for this is that you do not want to give one of these priceless dogs to somebody who is not capable of looking after it. Right? So it's like an adoption in that sense.
Dr. Denise Millstine: They're going to make sure that the dog will be safe and well cared for. And like you said before, a good match.
Stephen Kuusisto: They'll take the dog back if they discover that they've given the dog to an abusive home.
Dr. Denise Millstine: But I think what you're saying in summary is that there probably are more people who would be eligible for dogs, for guide dogs, than are aware of it. Perhaps and.
Stephen Kuusisto: I think that's right. There are like I said, there are 12 guide dog schools [there may be more] in the U.S. at any given moment, I think there are probably about 12,000 active guide dog teams working in the U.S. These guide dog schools could easily support eight times that number, right? I mean, people just don't know about it. I spent some time trying to figure that out.
I worked at Guiding Eyes for the Blind for four or five years. Because we're not Finland or Sweden, right, there is no easy way to contact people who have lost their vision. There are multiple agencies and organizations and they're not really connected and it's a bit of a can of spaghetti getting the word out.
Dr. Denise Millstine: Well, thankfully for your book and for this podcast, hopefully we've done our part to get the word out even more. So I think that Dr. Scruggs and myself are really amazed at how life-opening this experience is and we just want to thank you for putting this into the world in such an authentic way. It's such an honest way. I really encourage listeners who are interested in the topic or have never paused to think about the topic to read “Have Dog, Will Travel.” It's really a remarkable read, and I want to thank you both for being on the show.
Stephen Kuusisto: I'm delighted to be here and thank you all for the good work that you do. And here's to the dogs.
Dr. Brittni Scruggs: To the dogs. Thank you both. Yeah, thanks for empowering me.
Dr. Denise Millstine: “Read. Talk. Grow.” is a product of the Women's Health Center at Mayo Clinic. This episode was made possible by the generous support of Ken Stevens. Our producer is Lisa Speckhard-Pasque and our recording engineer is Rick Andresen.
Visit our show notes to see the books discussed today and for links to other health education materials. Follow us on social media, like Instagram and Facebook, or reach out directly to our email readtalkgrow@mayo.edu with suggestions for books or topic ideas. We'd love to hear from you.
This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not designed to replace a physician's medical assessment and judgment. Information presented should not be relied on as medical advice. Please contact a health care professional for medical assistance if needed for questions pertaining to your own health. Keep reading everyone!