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The history of Guide Dogs
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Guide Dog

The first training centre in Australia opened in Perth in 1952
The first training centre in Australia opened in Perth in 1952.

The remarkable story of the Guide Dog movement began in Vienna in 1819.

It was then that Johann Wilhelm Klein founded an Institute for the Blind, where he began training dogs as guides - the world's very first Guide Dogs. Although revolutionary, this program received little international awareness until almost one hundred years later; with many German soldiers blinded during World War I, German Doctor Gerhard Stalling founded a school entirely dedicated to training Guide Dogs.

The next step for the Guide Dog movement came ten years later. Dorothy Eustis, an American dog trainer for police work and Red Cross rescue units wrote an article in a New York newspaper documenting Dr Stalling's invaluable work - and thus, news of Guide Dogs travelled across the Atlantic.

The newspaper article inspired Morris Frank, a blind American, to contact Mrs Eustis; he then travelled to Switzerland so Mrs Eustis could train him to use a Guide Dog. After the success of Mr Frank and his dog Buddy, Mrs Eustis began teaching people how to train Guide Dogs and their users to work as an effective team. In fact, one of her students opened the first Guide Dogs Centre in Britain in 1931.

With the growing popularity of Guide Dogs overseas, it was only a matter of time before they reached our shores, and in 1950, Dr Arnold Cook returned home from London with Dreena - the first Guide Dog in Australia. Two years later, Australia's first Guide Dogs Centre began operating from two old tramcars in Perth. From this rather humble beginning, Guide Dog Associations were established in several states to raise funds for clients to fly to Perth for training with Guide Dogs. After countless flights across the country, a second Guide Dogs Centre was founded in Victoria in 1962.

Guide Dogs for the Blind Association of New South Wales was founded by volunteers in 1957 and incorporated in 1962. The Association joined by way of merger in 1991 with the ACT Guide Dog Association Limited to form Guide Dog Association of New South Wales and the ACT. In 2003 the Association changed its name to Guide Dogs NSW/ACT to reflect current thinking and style, and in 2007, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT celebrated their 50th anniversary with the unveiling of a statue of Australia's firs Guide Dog user, Dr Arnold Cook, at their training centre in Glossodia, Sydney.

From Vienna to Vaucluse, from New York to Newcastle, the Guide Dog movement has changed the lives of countless people with living blindness or impaired vision. We are proud to continue the proud history of this movement.