Winnipeg volunteers stepping up to raise puppies for CNIB guide dog program

Dozens of puppies have been trained across the country, going to work guiding for the visually impaired. Joseph Bernacki reports.

Fred the Labrador retriever puppy has captivated the heart of Winnipeg resident Suzanne Ullyot. He’s the sixth puppy she’s actively trained to become a future guide dog since 2018.

“He’ll be six months old at the end of December, and he is lovely,” Ullyot said with a smile.

Fred is a daily companion for Ullyot, who volunteers for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) guide dogs program.

Eight-week-old puppies are placed with a volunteer to work on house manners, toilet and obedience training. Fred is currently learning a few simple commands.

“It’s lovely to go someplace with them and know that you can trust them to behave; you know, take them into a mall, and you just know that they are going to be okay,” Ullyot said.

Fred will stay with Ullyot until he’s 12 to 15 months old, at which point he’ll go off to the canine campus in Ottawa. Hannah Crawford, a puppy development trainer with the CNIB guide dog program, said after that, dogs find their forever home.

“They undergo training for about another six to eight months, depending on the dog, before they then go out and can be matched with one of our clients across Canada,” Crawford said.

“There is a really huge demand. The more dogs we can raise in our puppy development programs across Canada, the more dogs we can get through to our canine campus and the more dogs that we can get out into the community to our clients across Canada with sight loss.”

Right now, Crawford said there are about 25 to 30 volunteers in Winnipeg who raise puppies for the program.

Tracy Garbutt was matched with Marion, a brindle Labrador retriever, in 2019. He now works for the CNIB ambassador dog program as the program lead for client relations.

He said the relationship he has with Marion is essential to his life.

“You’re putting your trust in her to make those decisions, and, you know, it’s not always 100 per cent but nine times out of 10, she’s right,” Garbutt said.

“Even when she’s not, we work through those situations to get around obstacles and things that aren’t safe.”

Garbutt said CNIB needs more volunteers like Ullyot to keep the program thriving. It’s a national guide dog program that originally started in 2017.

“We’ve matched over 100 (people) across Canada, and so we’re growing all the time,” Garbutt said.

“They do such an amazing job, and we could not do it without them.”

Ullyot said it’s worth volunteering even though Fred will move on within a year.

“They make you laugh every day,” Ullyot said.

“They try so hard to do the right thing, and I love watching them not being able to do something one week, and then two weeks later, all of a sudden, they get it.”