A Dog Makes All the Difference

By Leslie Rowe | December 2021

As a puppy, Micky was always happy, wiggling and wagging from head to tail. Like most pups, he was excited by all the new things he encountered every day. But, unlike most, Micky was born for a greater purpose. He was born as a Southeastern Guide Dogs puppy, trained from birth to become a guide dog for someone with vision loss. 

Micky’s education started at just two days old, when friendly humans stroked and tickled him to grow his bond with humans. It continued in Puppy Preschool, where staff and volunteers exposed him to sights, smells, sounds, colors, objects, and textures to grow his curiosity and expand his confidence. He spent over a year with his volunteer puppy raiser working on house manners, basic skills, and real-world experiences to prepare him for a working career. He was a joyful student, and as soon as he put on his coat, Micky knew exactly what to do. His raiser, Amy Francis-Bacon, shares, “He is ridiculously smart. He’d wake up and say, ‘Let’s do this!’”

Eagerness for adventure and a willingness to learn served Micky well when he attended Canine University on the Southeastern Guide Dog campus. Here, he went through advanced skills training with a certified guide dog instructor to prepare him for his destiny: to become a guide dog for someone who needed him most. 

That someone was a teenager named Valerie. 

At ten months old, Valerie was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Doctors’ visits, brain surgery, and chemotherapy stretched into 18 months after the tumor grew back. Valerie’s mother, Celeste, became little Valerie’s chief advocate. While raising a family of four daughters, Celeste and her husband Craig took on the challenges of caring for a seriously ill child.

At five years old, Valerie was accepted for treatment at St. Jude’s, which meant occasional trips to Memphis, Tenn., as well as radiation treatments. Besides fighting to beat cancer, Valerie was growing up legally blind.

“They did the surgery, and during that, they mistakenly cut her optic nerve and damaged her optic chiasm,” explains Celeste. “She had perfect vision at ten months old. Now she has no light perception in her left eye and no peripheral vision in her right eye. Over time, her vision has stabilized, but until she was seven years old, she didn’t realize her field of vision was limited, and other people could see more than she can.”

“At the hospital, I would bump into poles,” explains Valerie, now a teenager. “When I was out in public, outside the house, I was hitting a lot of stuff.”

Throughout the challenges, Celeste and Craig were determined to give Valerie and her three older sisters a life filled with rich experiences. The family settled in Sarasota, Florida after living in Gainesville and spending four years in Ecuador as missionaries. They bought a home on two acres, where they established a working plant nursery, fruit farm, and honey bee apiary. Celeste, an expert in rare fruit and bananas, taught her daughters how to care for their rare tropical fruit trees and edible landscaping.

As Celeste continued to advocate for Valerie, Valerie learned to advocate for herself. That’s when she started asking her parents for a guide dog. It began in 2012 when she was seven years old and visited Southeastern Guide Dogs on a puppy-hugging field trip with the Division of Blind Services. The quest continued when Valerie met young Millie, first in Bradenton and again at Camp Sunshine in Maine. Millie had the same kind of brain tumor, and Valerie heard about Millie’s dog, Miracles, a Kids Companion Dog and a gift from Southeastern Guide Dogs.

However, there was one problem: Celeste was terrified of dogs. And besides, as she explained to her daughter, she was allergic. Clearly, dogs were not welcome in their home.

The last straw came when Celeste and Valerie ran into a group of instructors working with guide-dogs-to-be at the UTC Mall. “Valerie had her white cane,” Celeste recalls. “Marisa, the instructor, took so much time to talk to me. I had looked into Southeastern Guide Dogs once, and they said the age was 18, but Marisa knew the age limit was changing and encouraged us to please reach out to Southeastern Guide Dogs again.”

With pressure from Valerie, Celeste made the phone call just when Southeastern Guide Dogs had launched a new Guide Dog Camp for visually impaired teens and their parents. This two-day, overnight experience was designed as a hands-on introduction, helping families understand what having a guide dog can mean. Reluctantly, Celeste signed up.

“My mom wanted me to go so that she could prove to me that a guide dog would be too much work,” Valerie says. 

Celeste concurs. “I agreed to the camp because I thought we would go, and she would see that big dogs are scary to be around.”

Luckily for Valerie, the opposite happened. “The camp was literally life-changing,” Celeste continues. “I’m convinced these aren’t just dogs. These are some other animals that you’re passing off as dogs.”

The instant they returned home from Guide Dog Camp, they filled out a guide dog application. Just a few months later, in August 2019, Valerie attended Guide Dog Class 281. Since she was only 15-years-old and participated in the adult class, Celeste came along, enjoying her own private dorm room next door to Valerie’s.

Valerie was paired with the lovable, cuddly, playful, life-changing Micky. The Micky whose tail never stops wagging, especially when he’s with Valerie. Micky’s infectious joy surrounds Valerie, whether she’s having a good day or not.

Now 17, the inseparable Valerie and Micky share secrets and adventures. Together they’ve shared doctor’s appointments, shopped at malls and grocery stores, enjoyed parks and trails, dined in restaurants, played in pools, and even completed a summer internship at Southeastern Guide Dogs.

And Celeste? She’s still very much involved as she coaches Valerie on how to advocate for herself. After all, her youngest child will be on her own one day, and that day isn’t so far away. Knowing Micky is there makes all the difference. 

“My mom doesn’t worry as much,” Valerie says simply. “I always have someone with me.”

Learn more about Southeastern Guide Dogs at www.GuideDogs.org.