‘You are my eyes’ - Guide dogs badly needed in China

It has been a dream for many blind people in China to have a guide dog and traveling freely and safely.

In China, there are more than 10 million visually impaired people. Tens of thousands of them apply for a guide dog every year.

Guide dogs training base are seen in Nanjing and Dalian, which are regarded as pioneer cities in these field. They have different models of development, but encountered the same "bottleneck" - funds.

The guide dog training base of Nanjing Police Dog Institute has been funded by Shanghai Disabled Person Federation since 2007 in training guide dogs. Therefore, the trained guide dogs are available only to blind people with Shanghai hukou for free. Over 70,000 visual impaired people in Nanjing cannot apply for it.

Dalian guide dog training base is also facing a funding gap, where the guide dogs are free to applicants all over the country. Since there are no geographical restrictions, the number of applicants is very big. Many candidates have to wait for a long time.

Generally speaking, a qualified guide dog has to go through a variety of training subjects including obedience, basic walking, walking on the ground and cooperation with owners. The training cycle is about one year. But the success rate is only about 50 percent. Long training period and high elimination rate as well as labor costs, health and epidemic prevention fees drive the cost of training a guide dog up to over 100,000 yuan.

Chinese experts said that it required a long process to solve the contradiction between supply and demand of guide dogs.