International Guide Dog Day has been held every year on the last Wednesday in April since 1992, honoring guide dogs and the work they do for the blind.

The first guide dogs are credited to Johann Wilhelm Klein, who founded the Institute for the Education of the Blind in Vienna1. Klein detailed his method for training guide dogs in 1819, but Guide Dogs wouldn't be widely used until nearly 100 years later.

After World War I, many soldiers were returning home blind from poisonous gases. Dr. Gerhard Stalling suggested training mass numbers of dogs to help the men, and in 1916 opened the world's first guide dog school2.

Guide dog schools soon spread throughout Germany, providing guide dogs to former service members and blind people throughout the world3. Dr. Stalling's program only lasted as long as the right dogs were available, however, which only proved to be a few years.

In the 1920s an American dog trainer named Dorothy Harrison Eustis helped to relaunch the guide dog movement, and trained the first guide dog in the U.S. She later founded the Seeing Eye School in New Jersey4.

Following the lead of these pioneers, there are now guide dog schools in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

These schools help train animals that will change countless lives. Sign the pledge and help us honor the work of guide dogs across the world!

More on this issue:

1. Bark Post (7 March 2016), "Guide Dogs Have Been Leading The Way Since The Days Of Ancient Rome."
2. International Guide Dog Federation, "History of Guide Dogs."
3. Mark Ostermeier, Military Medicine (2010), "History of Guide Dog Use by Veterans."
4. Vital Pet Life (2022), "Guide Dogs: Guides for People with Vision Loss."