The First Running Guide Dog Helps His Blind Owner Go the Distance
Every morning, Richard Hunter leaves his home at nine o’clock to go jogging in his neighborhood, but he doesn’t do so alone. He has a running partner named Klinger who has long hair and a long tongue that flops out of his mouth during the whole run.
Klinger is a German Shepherd, and the very first guide dog to have been officially trained to be a running partner to a blind person. That person would be Hunter, who was formerly a school psychologist. When he was 22, doctors diagnosed him with retinitis pigmentosa, which caused him to progressively lose his …