Did You See This?

How a Guide Dog Becomes a Guide Dog

A puppy grows into a service animal.

This video imagines how the world looks to a dog being trained as a companion animal. His name is Jackson, and he’s a real-life service dog trainee being raised by a partnership between Guiding Eyes for the Blind and IBM Cloud Computing. The idea is for IBM to improve Jackson’s rearing by making years of Guiding Eyes’ raw data easier to access and manage. It’s an emotional ride.

We meet Jackson at birth, and then watch as he opens his eyes for the first time when he’s 14 days old. And by day 28, we see his early developmental milestones through those eyes. On day 40, he finds out he’s Jackson. Next, he’s coaxed into learning to use stairs, he’s weighed and measured, and, at week 10, he’s carted off to a loving raiser family’s home.

The family’s job is to teach Jackson to adapt to new environments, learn basic commands, and bond with people. And this family sure bonds with him: It’s heart-wrenching to watch Jackson leave the family at 14 months old.

After that, it’s off to final training and more health tracking until, at 21 months old, he finally meets his blind owner and—it’s hard to type with tears in my eyes—a lifelong relationship begins.