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Author: Šárka Kollerová,MG Příbor,Czech Republic

A dog is man’s best friend

Příbor 21. 05. 2009

“Life without a dog is empty“. Elizabeth Bowen

You almost certainly know the phrase, “A dog is man’s best friend“and I can confirm, from my own experience, that this is the truth. I personally can't imagine my life without a dog. As a dog owner, a dog running towards you, snuggling up against you or pleasantly barking are all really great feelings. Moreover, you have something which always listens to you and loves you. Because of these facts dogs are the best and the most beautiful creatures for me.

However, dogs aren’t only pets.They can often help people.Firstly, like sheepdogs which really help with shepherding. Secondly, liek sniffer dogs, they can be trained to search for hard drugs. And lastly,I want to talk about guide-dogs which are actually a great miracle for blind people. These dogs can deal with a lot of issues and problems in a blind person’s life and they are perfect mediators between healthy people and sightless ones. They ensure that handicapped people can live normal lives and this is the best thing that they can do. Their training for this role, however, is not easy. First they are sent to a normal family and then the dogs are specially trained.They have to learn perhaps 50 different tasks or disciplines.And then, when they are fully trained, they are sent to a new family where they try to make life as normal as possible for their owners.

 
When it comes to training guide-dogs there are some more questions you have to think about.For example,how to choose the best dog for this? The best dog breeds are German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers because they have very good characters,for example they are well-balanced, easy to teach and smarter than other breeds.

 
Another issue to think about is how much it costs to train every dog. We have to think of the price too, because it’s a very high sum. One dog costs perhaps 200 000 Czech crowns (about $10,000 or 7500€, but blind people can usually get the monetary support from some sponsors(mostly rich businessmen) or some donations from organsiations which raise money especially for them. You can help too because in many supermarkets and other shops there are very often places wher you can donate money. In the Czech Republic in some supermarkets there are specially made black cuddly dogs with white collars and you can put your small change in them small. And it’s not just about making a big donation; small amounts help too.

 
In conclusion, I can only stress express that I think everybody should try help to blind people because they need it and we can make them happy.And maybe, in the future, I’ll become a guide-dog trainer some day because it’s a very helpful job.