After 12 years in Girl Scouts Troop 2047, senior Lauren Houseknecht has finally reached her goal: the Gold Award. Houseknecht started working on her award in March of 2016 while she was still a junior, and her original thought was to do a project to help premature children, and idea inspired by cousin, Robert Walter, who was born prematurely.

After thinking the idea through further, however, Houseknecht decided on a different topic. “I chose to raise a Guiding Eyes dog because I wanted to help others and inspire other people to do this, too,” she said. She is calling this project “Paws for a Cause.”

Houseknecht first saw Guiding Eyes dogs being trained in Kroger in February of 2016 and immediately knew that was what she wanted to do for her award. Following that, Houseknecht found “Guiding Eyes for the Blind” where she officially began working on her award. Based in New York but having branches all over the country, including in Charlottesville, Guiding Eyes welcomes kids ages 13 and older to train dogs to be blind peoples’ “Guiding Eyes.”

Houseknecht got matched with her dog, known as “Wheat,” on June 17, 2016, after taking three pre-puppy classes at the district organizer’s house. The classes were 1-2 hour meetings that involved getting a practice puppy and learning basic things with them like teaching them not to pull on the leash and to sit. Then, the district organizer went to the main location in New York where the puppies are kept and matched Houseknecht with Wheat based on personality before bringing her to her house.

Following being matched, the pair would go to meetings every Tuesday at various locations and the same organizer would work with them to improve Wheat’s abilities. A few months after that, Houseknecht and Wheat only had to go every other week.

Meanwhile, Houseknecht would work with Wheat on behavior management at home. For example, no jumping on the couch or tables, no stealing food, not pulling on the leash, and other simple tricks that would be helpful for a guide dog to know, like sitting until being told to stand. In summary, they work on Wheat being smoother to handle.

Now, nine months later, Wheat is only three months away from her official service dog testing, which will take place around June and will test all of the things the dogs have learned over the past year. “Wheat has improved so much since we got her and I encourage every dog-lover who wants to help others to raise a puppy themselves through Guiding Eyes,” Houseknecht said. 

She added that “for the test, [Wheat] will be put in a room with a bunch of evaluators. She’ll have many things around her like statues, running vacuums, loud noises, and people in costumes to see if they’ll freak her out. Then they’ll see if she is okay with body handling, having a guiding handle put on her, and how much she gets distracted or pays attention when given a command.” If Wheat passes all of these tests, she will finally claim the title of Official Guide Dog.

Guiding Eyes for the Blind is a non-profit organization that produces over 160 guide teams per year. There is no cost to any blind or visually-impaired person to get a service dog. To train a service dog, all a student and their family would have to pay is for food, a leash and collar, and extra toys. Guiding Eyes pays for everything else from vet bills to training fees. They also provide a crate for the dog to sleep in at night.

For more information on this program, visit the Guiding Eyes website, www.guidingeyes.org, or contact Houseknecht’s Facebook page, called “Paws for a Cause.” Or, you can Google search “Lauren Houseknecht Facebook” to find pictures and videos of Wheat.

Although achieving the Girl Scout Gold Award was Houseknecht ultimate goal, there were other required awards that led up to it, such as a Bronze Award and a Silver Award.  Her project topic for the Silver Award involved helping the Fluvanna SPCA by donating cat and dog food and blankets for the animals.

Houseknecht hopes to finish her Gold Award by the end of her senior year so she can get a scholarship to college.  “It would be amazing if I could get into any college I wanted, all because of this award,” she said.