- April 25, 2024
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Nine-month-old black lab Aja sits calmly near her puppy raiser Joel Clark's feet. Someday she will join the more than 3,000 guide dog teams that Southeastern Guide Dogs has helped pair up. She is the fourth dog that Clark has raised for the organization.
When Clark isn't helping train Aja he serves as the Southeastern Guide Dogs director of information and capital projects. The position has kept him busy with the recent addition of two new facilities a veterinary center and a student center. A new Puppy Academy facility is expected to break ground on the main Palmetto Campus that will benefit puppy raisers throughout Sarasota and Manatee Counties. The 19,229 square-foot facility was announced Wednesday evening for a group of donors and friends at the Hyatt Regency.
The purpose of the facility is to provide a home for the early months in the guide dogs' lives that will serve as a training ground and a place for exposure to the public.
“It’s a really unique facility,” Clark said. “Most other organizations don’t invite the public to touch the puppies but we do. We invite the public to come in and to interact.”
Among the rooms planned is a Puppy Hugging room that volunteers and members of the public will be able to spend time with puppies. There are also plans for an outdoor Splash Park that would allow for visitors to watch puppies play in a water playground.
Currently, the puppies are being housed on campus in facilities that are used for multiple age groups of dogs. The expansion and specialized rooms will allow the dogs to continue training with fewer distractions. During the unveiling of the facilities plans Southeastern Guide Dogs CEO Titus Herman explained the possibilities that the expansion will provide.
"Southeastern Guide Dogs was established 33 years ago in a two-bedroom home in the middle of an orange grove. Our buildings are reaching the end of their usefulness," Herman said. "This will increase our capacity to service the people who need our services."
