The Seeing Eye

The Seeing Eye, Inc. (TSE) is a guide dog school located in Morristown, New Jersey, in the United States. Since 1929, The Seeing Eye has assisted people who are blind, helping them gain independence, self-confidence, and dignity through the use of Seeing Eye dogs. The Seeing Eye, the founding member of the U.S. Council of Guide Dog Schools and a fully accredited member of the International Guide Dog Federation, is a lead researcher in canine genetics, breeding, disease control, and behavior.

The Seeing Eye, Inc., owns the registered trademark "The Seeing Eye" (registration number 2,165,163, registered June 16, 1998), and claims that only dogs from The Seeing Eye school in Morristown, N.J., can be called Seeing Eye dogs.

The history of The Seeing Eye began in Europe in the 1920s with a woman named Dorothy Harrison Eustis who moved to Vevey, Switzerland, from the United States to set up a breeding and training facility for German shepherds. Eustis bred and trained police dogs to be intelligent, strong, and responsible. Jack Humphrey was an American trainer and geneticist who helped Eustis train and develop their own scientific approach to breeding and training.

During World War I, many German soldiers were blinded or visually impaired due to the war, so several schools in German began experimenting with guide dogs that were taught specific skills. Eustis learned about these schools and was so impressed by it, she wrote an article for The Saturday Evening Post. The article, “The Seeing Eye,” was published on November 5, 1927, and Eustis began receiving countless letters from people who were blind, asking her to train a guide dog for them.

Her article was read to Morris Frank, a 20-year-old blind man from Nashville, Tennessee. Frank, who had been blinded in two separate accidents, believed a guide dog would help him regain his independence. Eustis received his letter and although she did not train dogs for the blind, she decided to help Frank because his letter was unique: Frank stated that he intended to use the trained dog to spread awareness for the cause and eventually establish a school to help people through the training of guide dogs in the United States. Eustis and Humphrey began to research and modify their own training in which they trained several German shepherds to guide humans. In April 1928, Frank met his first ever Seeing Eye dog named Kiss. He changed her name to Buddy and named all his future Seeing Eye dogs (he had six in total) Buddy. The name is now retired by The Seeing Eye. Frank and Buddy had to go through a six-week training that not only created a strong bond, but also taught them to work as a team to navigate busy streets, dangerous obstacles, stairways, crowded shops, and anything that was a danger for Frank. On January 29, 1929, Eustis and Frank established The Seeing Eye in Frank’s hometown of Nashville. At first, the American culture was apprehensive about the idea of a dog guiding the blind and joining people in public places.

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