What is the role of service animals? Learn about guide dogs for the blind with this unit study and free printable.
YouTube Videos:
- Kids Meet a Guide Dog for the Blind
- Pip: A Short Animated Film (just a cute, silent animated short about a guide dog!)
- How Puppies Train to Be Guide Dogs
- Sesame Street: Gina Explains Service Dogs
Books:
Guide Dogs: A Kid’s Book About Guide and Assistance Dogs by Lionel Paxton
A book with full-color photographs depicting the amazing ways guide and assistance dogs help people with disabilities gain independence.
Guide Dogs for the Blind by Alice Boynton
This book discusses the intensive training that dogs undergo in order to become the “seeing eyes” of a person living with blindness.
Follow My Leader by James B. Garfield
After a fireworks display gone awry ends in Jimmy losing his eyesight, he finds that he will have to start from scratch and re-learn everything. Jimmy works hard to learn how to use a cane and read Braille, but when a guide dog named Leader enters the picture, Jimmy finds it a challenge to trust his new sidekick.
Buddy: The First Seeing Eye Dog by Eva Moore
In the early 1920s, Buddy, a young German Shepard, was being trained for the force at a police school. When a blind man named Morris Frank decided to train Buddy to help him navigate the world, Buddy and Morris developed a special bond.
Looking Out for Sarah by Glenna Lang
Sarah, a blind girl, and her loyal friend Perry go out about their day together–getting on the train to go to school, shopping, and making a stop at the post office.
Helping Dogs by Mary Ann Hoffman
Dogs can be trained to do so many things. For people with a variety of disabilities, trained dogs have helped them live full, independent lives. Read about working dogs who help people open doors, operate light switches, and move in their wheelchairs.
Dog Diaries: Buddy by Kate Klimo
Buddy, the first-ever seeing eye dog, begins his story as a dog being trained for the police force in this beginner chapter book.
Websites:
- Guide Dogs Facts for Kids
- Guide and Service Dogs
- Woof! 9 Interesting-and surprising-facts about guide dogs
Documentaries/Movies:
Here is a free guide I created for the 2018 documentary Pick of the Litter. It is not the same as the documentary on Disney+, but currently, this documentary is free on Hulu and Netflix.
Download the guide for free at my store or Teachers Pay Teachers.
