Southeastern Guide Dogs is one of only 10 fully certified guide dog schools in the country. Visitors can easily visit its 23-acre campus in Palmetto, featuring a park-like setting, three kennels, nine student rooms, a full-service cafeteria, a gift shop and an administrative facility.

Just inside the front gate lies the intersection of Independence Drive and Freedom Way, bordered by a series of pathways known as the Freedom Walk. On most days, visually impaired students and their new guide dogs can be seen practicing on this outdoor classroom, learning to work and walk together. Students encounter crosswalks and man-made obstacles along Freedom Walk as they learn to trust their dogs to safely guide them.

Walk around campus

Take a leisurely walk around the campus during open houses and group tours, and you'll see:

• The clean, well-ventilated breeding and puppy kennel, where healthy and happy puppies are born and cared for.
• The spacious and colorful puppy-hugging room, where early socialization helps puppies learn to love humans and feel comfortable with activity and people.
• The puppy playground, where green spaces and play equipment help puppies to get plenty of exercise and fun.
• The training kennel exercise yard, where dogs in training run and play, eventually learning to obey over 40 commands.
• The student housing and administrative building, where students live with their new dogs for 26 days of training.
• The contemplative Dog Memorial Garden and Rainbow Bridge, located on the southwest corner of campus. This place of remembrance reminds us of the faithful dogs who served so willingly.  

In addition to the Palmetto campus, a downtown training center serves as the Bradenton starting point for students to expand their guided experiences in a busier, metropolitan setting.
 

Visitors are welcome to join the public puppy hugging sessions, volunteer to walk a dog, tour campus during a Saturday open house or schedule a private group tour.

Valuable programs 

• Paws for Independence partners people with visual impairments with professionally trained guide dogs. Certified instructors provide students and their new guide dogs with 26 days of individualized instruction at the Palmetto campus or in-home placements, as well as lifetime follow-up and support.
• Beginning in 2006, the Paws for Patriots program partners veterans with visual impairments and other disabilities with guide dogs and therapy dogs.
• Gifted Canines provides law-enforcement agencies, hospitals, assisted-living facilities, nursing homes, schools and individuals with special needs with dogs who participate in narcotics or arson detection, search and rescue, therapy and other specialized careers. The school places dogs in the Gifted Canines program only if they do not meet the specific criteria for becoming guide dogs.

Learn more

For more information about Southeastern Guide Dogs and its programs, visit http://www.guidedogs.org.