Maddie the guide dog helps blind NY student navigate her world
NEW YORK (PIX11) -- Maddie is a guide dog who goes everywhere with Yi Fan.
Fan is legally blind. Outside, in the bright sun, Fan can't see at all; her vision is slightly better indoors. She was born with a condition called oculocutaneous albinism.
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“This is Maddie. She’s a female black Labrador retriever steady. I cannot see the obstacles at all, so I’m relying on her to make sure I don’t run into any of them. Maddie really helps me because when I’m traveling, it’s so much easier than using a cane, and I can get faster from point A to point B a lot faster,” said Fan.
As a 20-year-old nursing student at Molloy University, she keeps a busy schedule and walks quickly with Maddie by her side.
“It’s a hard 12 hours, and my eyes get tired by the end of it, and she helps,” said Fan.
This is all part of the extensive training for both Fan and Maddie.
Volunteer puppy raisers have the dogs for eight weeks to about 14 months, teaching the pups house manners.
“They are really incredible. You get so much more back doing it than what you’re putting in. I really – cause you do love’em,” said puppy trainer Eillen Sheiner.
After that, the canine graduates as a guide dog mobility instructor.
Mark Briganti has trained more than 200 dogs over 20 years, including Maddie. Briganti works at the Guide Dog Foundation in Smithtown, where guide dogs are trained free of charge.
The Long Island campus is where he helped Fan with an intensive two-week training to make sure Maddie matched her fast-paced life. The success often makes him emotional.
“We have 12 weeks to make guide dogs out of them. This is the crux of why anyone would do this job. As you can imagine, it’s not a glamorous job. You’re outdoors in the cold in the rain, and you see someone like Fan working as hard as Fan works. What this young lady has done with her dog is just incredible,” said Briganti.
For Fan, it's just the beginning of paying it forward.