Training Guide Dogs in Mexico City
Mexico’s pioneering guide dog training school is fighting for survival, with a severe funding crisis threatening to close an institution that has helped people with visual impairments across Latin America for decades.
Footage filmed on Friday in Mexico City shows dogs undergoing specialised training in busy urban surroundings, learning to guide people past obstacles, including street stalls and pedestrians.
“The institution has been a major reference in Latin America. It is the first of its kind created for this purpose. And this started with the idea that the dogs should be trained in the place where they were going to work,” dog trainer Efren Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said one of the school’s strengths is that dogs are socialised, raised and trained in the same demanding urban conditions they will later encounter while working.
“That is why the institution was created; hence the importance of socialising, breeding and exposing the dogs to the conditions of the city where they will work. And Mexico City has many conditions that are very similar to other cities in Latin America. In that respect we are very similar,” he noted.
Rising Costs Put School at Risk
Training and supporting guide dogs requires a multidisciplinary team of trainers, veterinary doctors, administrators and volunteers, placing heavy financial demands on the institution.
“The cost per dog rises to practically one million pesos,” Gonzalez said.
Founder Silvia Lozada said the school has faced persistent financial problems since 2015, which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. A closure could leave 20 people with visual impairments without rehabilitation services and cost around 20 staff their jobs.
“If the school disappears, the work of raising awareness about inclusion and respect for the rights of people with visual impairments would cease,” Lozada said.
She also stressed the role guide dogs play in giving people greater independence, mobility and physical safety.
“A guide dog saves a blind person’s life every day, several times a day,” she said.
Decades of Helping People Across Latin America
Over more than three decades, the school has trained and provided guide dogs to people with visual impairments or low vision in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Chile, forming more than 150 handler-dog teams.
The institution is now appealing for public support to keep its doors open and continue training the next generation of guide dogs.
Article by Viory:
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