Guiding Eyes for the Blind’s CEO, Tom Panek, recently announced plans to eliminate Heeling Autism, the much needed and beloved program that has provided life-changing safety and independence for children with Autism and their families by pairing them with an Autism Service Dog.

Heeling Autism Service Dogs:

• Halt a child with autism from bolting into danger via tethering of the child to a highly trained service dog.
• Help ease the stress and promote calmness in a child with autism and with their family.
• Promote acceptance and inclusion in their community of a family struggling with the challenges of autism.

The Heeling Autism program has served 72 families with a near 100% success rate and results so remarkable and vast it would be impossible to fit them all here. We’d encourage you to watch this clip (in full, it’s quite brief, but worth it) about Heeling Autism that was featured on the Today Show: http://www.today.com/video/today/57197247#57197247

The CDC currently sets the prevalence rate of Autism in the United States alone at 1 in 68 children and rising drastically (6-15%) each year. For those of you who have had your lives touched by someone on the Autism Spectrum you know what a turbulent, emotional, stressful and ultimately isolating experience it can be - for everyone involved from the parents to the child to the siblings and so forth.

The Guiding Eyes staff knew the very special dogs training to be guide dogs for the blind could also help children on the Autism Spectrum stay safe and improve their quality of life, not to mention the rest of their family. So 7 years ago, in the spirit of the Guiding Eyes mission to be “passionate about connecting exceptional dogs with individuals and families for greater independence” the Heeling Autism program was born. Since then Guiding Eyes has been THE organization pioneering the pairing of these highly trained and skilled service dogs with children on the Autism Spectrum.

With a waiting list that became so long that they had to begin turning away applicants, a stellar success rate, and a passionate community supporting the mission, it seems short-sighted to remove, let alone diminish the existing Heeling Autism program at all. Yet that is indeed what is transpiring as we speak at Guiding Eyes.

Whether a recipient of a Heeling Autism dog, or someone experiencing vision loss and part of a Guiding Eyes guide dog team, or a donor or volunteer we feel strongly that the Guiding Eyes mission is only fulfilled if we continue to help these dogs transform people’s lives, providing independence and empowerment, and instilling hope where there was none before.

In addition to helping to fulfill the important mission of “connecting exceptional dogs with individuals and families for greater independence”, Guiding Eyes has also been able to be a more efficient and responsible breeder by "career changing" guide dogs in training, who are not suitable for guide work, and in turn re-purposing these dogs for an important job in the Heeling Autism program.

Instead, the program is being eliminated, and the CEO says the organization plans to instead offer therapy dogs to schools. While these dogs would certainly provide welcome companionship and support during school hours, they would not offer the vital safety component that has made the autism service dogs so valuable in their roles. It’s the difference between a therapy dog and a service dog trained to perform very specific safety oriented tasks - which no one knows better than Guiding Eyes. Consider a dog placed in a classroom of blind adolescents; this could never be as wide-ranging or powerful as that of a guide dog specially trained to promote safety, independent living and travel for one individual who is blind.

The CEO is claiming they need to operate as a financially responsible organization, and yet the new test program Running Guides is dedicated to training guide dogs to help blind runners run is staying intact. Saving the lives of children on the autism spectrum by preventing them from running out into a busy street, or wandering away to be lost, drowned, or even killed, is arguably an equally worthy cause.

A few other things of note:

• Fundraising for the guide dog and autism service dog programs are consolidated - when people give to one they are often expecting to be giving to the other.
• Heeling Autism costs less than 1.5% of the organization’s total annual expenses, including less than 50% of the postage/mailing services and less than 23% of the printing/publications expenses.

This petition isn’t about proving the reason for eliminating the Heeling Autism program isn’t accurate, it’s about unexpectedly abandoning a beloved part of a mission that the Guiding Eyes family felt we were all together on. When this program was slated for dismissal, there was no request for special fundraising or rallying the community for support, it was a simple post to the website. Meanwhile the Annual Report was sent out two days later via email with no mention of the change.

We are graduates (a part of a team with either a guide dog or autism service dog), staff, volunteers, donors and members of the community who believe strongly in the Guiding Eyes mission, and we’re concerned about the direction Guiding Eyes has taken under the current leadership. The abrupt elimination of the Heeling Autism program is just the tip of the iceberg.

We call on the Board of Directors to immediately reverse its decision and reinstate the Heeling Autism program in its entirety and embrace the program as critical to fulfilling the Guiding Eyes mission. We also ask that the Board dismiss the current CEO - we deserve leadership willing to work with us for the organization we love.  

This began as a petition to reinstate Heeling Autism, but what has been uncovered since it started is deeply unnerving and will not stand. The extent of what needs to change is far more severe. Please take the time to read the comments on this petition that thousands of people invested in preserving Guiding Eyes have taken the time to try to communicate to you.

Guiding Eyes is built on the collective strength (dollars, hours, skills) of its community and if we can’t make Heeling Autism work which is a critical and important part of the Guiding Eyes mission then we fear for Guiding Eyes’ future, as we are being misled and underestimated. To use a word from every guide and autism service dog team’s vocabulary, “Forward”.