Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) has teamed up with Michigan-based Leader Dogs for the Blind to provide a new setting to help train dogs that eventually will become guide dogs.
The partnership, which also includes Delta Air Lines and the Transportation Security Administration, kicked off Feb. 25 with an event at the McNamara Terminal.
Founded by three Detroit-area Lions Club members in 1939, Leader Dogs for the Blind empowers people who are blind, visually impaired or deaf-blind with skills for a lifetime of independent daily travel.
Training sessions will take place several times throughout the year, with guide dog mobility instructors taking approximately 20 dogs into the terminal for each custom training event. Nearly all of the 200 graduating dogs will have received this training before being partnered with a person who is blind. The training will include being screened at a TSA checkpoint, using elevators and moving walkways, riding the express tram, experiencing the varying lights and music in the connecting tunnel to the B/C concourse and other situations specific to traveling in an airport.
“We are happy to have the opportunity to provide a realistic venue for this important training,” says Thomas Naughton, airport CEO. “Future customers with visual challenges will have the confidence of knowing that their service animal will recognize the airport as a familiar setting.”
