A group of blind and developmentally challenged children gleefully welcome a therapy dog to their facility.

by Animal Medical Center

Volunteer dogs are frequent visitors to a facility for severely disabled children. Many of the young residents are blind, autistic, or developmentally challenged.  Two of the four children present at a recent visit were in wheelchairs and non-responsive. The other two, however, were extremely active. 

One little boy had glaucoma, and his eyes were cloudy and blue.  This didn’t seem to stop him from enjoying the dogs.  His teacher took his hand and ran it across the backs of the dogs.  The boy would jump up and down in delight.  One of the volunteer dogs started barking his happy bark, and the little boy thought this was a wonderful sound.  The dog’s owner thought the barking might be frightening to kids with vision problems, but these boys all seemed to love it.