About The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association

Our history

The ability to get around is vital in order to live a full life yet thousands of blind and partially-sighted people never leave home alone. We empower visually-impaired people to live their lives how they want to.

Guide Dogs is the world-leader in the breeding and training of guide dogs. Since 1934 the lives of over 26,000 visually impaired people have been transformed by guide dogs and there are currently around 4,500 guide dog partnerships, providing life changing independence and mobility.

A guide dogs training begins at six weeks old when their volunteer puppy walker introduces the pup to the sights, sounds and smells of a world in which they will play such an important part.

After just over a year, the young dogs start their formal training where they learn the skills needed to guide a blind or partially-sighted person. A guide dog is trained to guide its owner in a straight line, avoiding obstacles. It will stop at kerbs and steps, find doors, crossings and places which are visited regularly; it will guide its owner across the road but cannot decide where and when to cross safely which is the responsibility of the owner.

A guide dog that passes this training is then matched to a visually-impaired person by a Guide Dog Mobility Instructor before the partnership spends three weeks of intensive training with Guide Dogs’ specialist staff.

If they qualify together, then they are ready to face new everyday challenges – the bond between a guide dog and their visually impaired owner has begun, giving them life-changing freedom, independence and confidence.

Guide dog owners only have to pay a nominal 50p for their dog to ensure no-one is prevented from having one due to lack of funds but the full lifetime cost of a guide dog from birth to retirement is £49,800. We receive no government funding, and rely entirely upon the generosity of the public, companies and other organisations.

We help people with the skills they need to get around and move on with their lives by providing other mobility services such as rehabilitation and white cane training. Each year we help thousands of children and adults to develop the skills they need to be independent through our Vision Support Service. We also campaign passionately to break down barriers – both physical and legal – to enable blind and partially-sighted people to get around on their own.