Catching Sight: How a Guide Dog Helped Me See Myself by Deni Elliott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Have you ever wondered how a guide dog knows how to __ ? (Fill in the blank: Find a chair, find a bathroom, find your hotel room…). Catching Sight will answer these questions and more.

When I asked the author why she wrote it, she said, “I met a dog I could trust with my life.” She then added, “Once I got past how amazing that was, I wanted to know how a dog gets to be that way.”

Catching Sight is part memoir, part training journal, and all great story. It describes the extraordinary training and inter-species communication that goes into transforming a puppy into a competent, confident guide dog — and a human with limited vision into a competent, confident guide-dog handler. In examining the guide-dog partnership from every angle, the book shares insights that might make you look at your own dog with new respect (unless she’s got her stuffed doughnut toy stuck on her nose as she dances around the living room … again).

Anyone who wonders how guide dogs work, how they know what to do, and what makes them extraordinary will get answers in Catching Sight. You’ll glean tips on how to improve your relationship with your dog (or human) family members. And, you will learn about how and why a person might hide their disability — and the author’s struggle come to terms with being publicly, obviously identifiable as a blind person.




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