Dog leads woman to independence

By Carla Lee

Published: July 13, 2008

There was a time not so long ago that Charlotte Legare would have been at home, feeling lonely and disconnected from the outside world, but all that changed when Tobias entered her life.

After losing most of her vision to optic nerve drusen, the 41-year-old Dothan resident spent the three years feeling depressed and helpless. But she eventually realized that in order to really live, she needed to change her attitude, not her vision.

“I was tired of being sad all the time and focusing on what I couldn’t do — I didn’t want to live like that,” she said. “I had to really do some soul searching. I still have days when I feel frustrated, but Tobias has made a huge, huge, difference. It’s hard to not be positive when he’s around.”

Tobias is her leader dog, a 2-and-a-half-year-old German shepherd who is specially trained to help the blind navigate the challenges of living in a visual world.

Most people simply regard all dogs that aid the blind as dog guides, which Legare says is the generic term. Tobias, however, is known as a leader dog because he was trained at a special school, Leader Dogs for the Blind, in Rochester, Mich.

Today, Legare is happily chatting with others at local restaurants, taking the bus and generally feeling more confident thanks to Tobias.

Almost six years ago, Legare lived in Panama City, Fla., and was working as an optometry technician when her boss noticed that she frequently tripped over things in the office and tested her vision.

“He did a field test on me and completely freaked out,” she said. “I had no idea my vision was so bad. I thought everybody saw that way, but I was already legally blind.”

She was referred to specialists and eventually ended up at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where doctors confirmed her original diagnosis. Because the disease blocks optical signals to the brain, she will have decreasing tunnel vision the rest of her life.

“It was a difficult, very long adjustment that never really ends,” she said. Although she could no longer drive, she became determined to get back her independence on some level. She went through orientation and mobility training at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. 

Tests she faced using only her cane included browsing through stores, using the bus and crossing busy U.S. 231, which can be pretty intimidating even to a person with normal vision.

When her instructor first mentioned a guide dog as a possibility, Legare was skeptical and unsure. She already had two dogs at home and was unsure how another would mesh into her life much less become a partner in which she would trust with her life.

Leader Dogs for the Blind is a nonprofit organization founded by the Lions Club in 1939 to help those who can’t see reach their full potential, according to its Web site, leaderdog.org. People from across the world spend almost four weeks at the Michigan facility to be matched with the dog that best fits their personality and lifestyle. Many of the dogs are German shepherds like Tobias, but Labradors and other mixes are often used as well.

The cost of the dog, training and usually expense of travel are normally paid through the Lions Club and donations from other organizations. The local chapter of the Lions Club helped Legare with the travel expense of flying Legare from Dothan to Atlanta, where her expenses were then handled through the Leader Dog school, she said.

“The cost of raising a Leader Dog from breeding through the training is about $38,000, so we are talking about a lot of expense,” Legare said.

When she arrived at the school, she trained with instructors for three days before meeting her chosen dog, Tobias. In the initial meeting, the pair is completely isolated in a room for three hours to bond.

In every case, there is a special moment when you bond and you know it’s going to work, according to Legare. That moment came for her and Tobias one day during training even though they were initially nervous and didn’t know what to expect of each other.

“Everything just clicked and I started thinking maybe we could be a team,” she said.

Since then, teamwork has become an overall theme of their relationship, she said.

“We have to trust each other with our lives in order for this to work,” she said. “I give him commands which he follows if he decides it’s safe.”

Her teammate became her guardian recently when Legare was traveling in the downtown area. She was attempting to go around a parked car to get in on the passenger side when Tobias quickly blocked her path.

“A quiet, new hybrid was coming down the street and I didn’t even hear it, but before I knew what was going on, I was stumbling on something like a brick wall,” she said. “He had put his body across my path to keep me from going out into the street. The driver squealed brakes. She was upset, I was upset, but the dog just kept going like nothing had happened.”

But Legare knew better — Tobias had saved her life that day, and it’s something she won’t soon forget.

When Legare goes out in public now she is more than happy for people to approach her to ask questions about the dog, the program or how she functions which her visual impairment. But when Tobias is wearing his harness, he knows to be ever watchful and vigilant in spite of any distractions that may come his way.

“The big thing I would like people to understand is that giving him attention or even talking to him can be detrimental,” she said. “He is still a dog and as a dog, he loves petting and attention, but it takes his focus off his job — and that can put both of us in danger.”

All in all, Tobias does more for Legare than just keeping her safe.

“He’s become a great friend and given me more confidence in myself and my own abilities than I ever had before,” she said. “He has definitely broadened my world.”