Leader Dogs Instructor Realizes Childhood Dream of Working With Organization

This is the second in a five-part series profiling the different faces involved with Leader Dogs for the Blind. 

As a child, Meredith Griffin of Rochester was in awe when she would see Leader Dogs working downtown.

"I grew up in Rochester and always saw them working and at the age of 9 I told them I wanted to work at Leader Dogs and wrote a paper on it in elementary school," she said.

She ended up raising a puppy for the organization, which provides guide dogs for visually impaired clients and offers training to help clients navigate their surroundings.

While a student at Rochester High School, she began volunteering for the organization and was hired there shortly after earning her master's degree in mobility at Western Michigan University. She will reach her six-year anniversary with Leader Dogs this September.

"It was kind of my dream job since I was a little kid, which is awesome," she said. 

Job connects Griffin with people, not dogs

While Griffin works with Leader Dogs, her focus is solely on the clients.

"We don't work with the dogs," she said. "We provide skills that our clients, if they want to come back for dogs, will need in the future. We do the pre-dog skills."

This includes orientation and mobility training, and learning to use a cane to get around, listening for traffic and locating curbs and crossings. Some clients, Griffin said, aren't even planning on using a dog. 

"We have clients that never wanted a dog in the first place and just want to improve their cane skills and we'll work with them, as well."

The organization's orientation and mobility training is a rigorous one-week program, where clients remain on the Rochester Hills campus for the week and work from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. 

During this time, she says, she gets to know a lot of the clients on a personal level.

"(One of the best parts of the job) is meeting all the new people that come through our door," Griffin said. "Everybody's a unique individual and it's fun to meet people from all over the country. We work one-on-one with the individual and get to tailor the class to them."

It's especially heartening, she said, to see clients thrive and give back to the organization.

"One individual I worked with, she ended up volunteering for our accessible materials center," Griffin said. "She translates our materials into Spanish for us, which then can be translated into Braille or put into audio format."

The organization caters to international clients from Spain, Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries in addition to local clients.

Program prepares clients for traffic challenges

While downtown Rochester is well-suited for the visually impaired with Leader Dog-friendly businesses and audio cues from the downtown crosswalks, clients still need to prepare for more hazardous situations elsewhere.

"Some of the main issues we see in other areas around the country are roundabouts," she said. "They're not accessible, really, to any pedestrian, especially those who are blind or visually impaired. It's one of the bigger issues out in the field that a lot of our clients are facing now that they're becoming more popular."

Check back tomorrow to meet another face involved with Leader Dogs for the Blind.