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Guide Dogs for the Blind provides K-9 Buddies

pets for blind and visually impaired children

pets and prepare children for future use and care of a mobility dog.

Born on January 4, 1809, Coupvray, France, Braille was accidentally blinded in one eye at the age of three. Within two years, a disease in his other eye left him completely blind.

Captain Charles Barbier invented sonography, or nightwriting, a system of embossed symbols used by soldiers to communicate silently at night on the battlefield. Inspired by a lecture Barbier gave at the Institute a few years later, the fifteen-year-old Braille adapted Barbier's system to replace Haüy's awkward embossed type, which he and his classmates had been obliged to learn.

In his initial study, Braille had experimented with geometric shapes cut from leather as well as with nails and tacks hammered into boards. He finally settled on a fingertip-sized six-dot code, based on the twenty-five letters of the alphabet, which could be recognized with a single contact of one digit. By varying the number and placement of dots, he coded letters, punctuation, numbers, diphthongs, familiar words, scientific symbols, mathematical and musical notation, and capitalization. With the right hand, the reader touched individual dots and, with the left, moved on toward the next line, comprehending as smoothly and rapidly as sighted readers. Using the Braille system, students were also able to take notes and write themes by punching dots into paper with a pointed stylus which was aligned with a metal guide.

Guide dogs Hearing dogs Service dogs

blind, deaf, or physically disabled

Service dogs can also be trained to help people with seizure disorders or other medical problems.

The Guide Dog Foundation's Second Sight Shop® is ready to serve you.

Raise a Guide Dog Foundation Puppy  

One unique feature of bats is their modified forelimbs, which support a wing membrane (patagium). The basic elements of the mammalian limb are present in bats, although the relative sizes of most bones and muscles differ from those of nonflying mammals. The most elongated parts of the limb are those of the hand (metacarpal bones) and fingers (phalanges). The primary functions of these bones in bats is to provide support for the patagium and control its movements.

Numerous blood vessels and nerves are present throughout the wing membrane. Bats also have five unique muscles present in the patagium, and use additional muscles in the chest and back to move the wings up and down.

The most obvious difference between bird wings and those of bats is that bird wings are made of feathers, not a skin membrane. Birds have an elongated arm, but do not have elongated fingers like bats. Additionally, the muscles used in both the upstroke and downstroke are found in the chest of birds, while the upstroke muscles are on the back in bats (Fenton, 1983).

Bats are often thought of as flying mice,but they are more closely related to primates, including humans, than they are to mice.

the bat's body is covered by hair, with the exception of its wings.

Vampire bats don't suck blood. They make a small incision and lap up the blood of their hosts.

valuable part of the community

highly intelligent animals, capable of learning

companion animal

Dogs have been used as guards, hunters, draught animals, eyes for the blind, drug and explosive detectors, rodent controllers- and even weapons! In Roman times and the Middle Ages, mastiffs wearing light armour, carrying spikes and pots of flaming sulphur and resin ran into battle against mounted knights. In World War II the Russians trained dogs to run suicide missions between the tracks of German tanks with mines strapped on their backs.

It was invented by Louis Braille (1809-1852), a French teacher of the blind. It consists of patterns of raised dots arranged in cells of up to six dots in a 3 x 2 configuration.

Each cell represents a letter, numeral or punctuation mark.

Grade 3, which is used only in personal letters, diaries, and notes. It is a kind of shorthand, with entire words shortened to a few letters.

Black fur covers its ears, eyes, muzzle, legs, and shoulders, while the rest of its coat is white

thick, wooly coat

large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles

same size as a Black Bear

5-6 feet high

276 pounds and males wheighing 10% to 20% more than females

Bats are not flying mice; they are not even remotely related to rodents. Bats are such unique animals that scientists have placed them in a group all their own, called 'Chiroptera’, which means hand-wing. Bats are grouped with primates and lemurs in a grand order called Archonta.

Bats are not blind. Most bats can see as well as humans. Fruit bats have eyesight that is adapted to low-light, much like cats. Fruit bats also see in color.

If a bat swoops toward you, it’s probably after the mosquito that is hovering just above your head -  not your hair.