estimates the country's visually impaired population to be over 17 million. According to the World Health Organization, eight million Chinese are completely blind -- roughly equal to the whole population of Switzerland.
While much progress has been made in recent years, Chinese cities are still far from disabled friendly. Even in Beijing, accessibility is lacking in many places -- for instance, not all pedestrian crossings have audible traffic signals for the blind, Yang said. The poor upkeep of roads, in general, often poses another hazard -- Yang once fell into an uncovered seven-feet deep manhole while passing through an old residential compound. Luckily he did not suffer serious injuries, and managed to climb out of it.
Wang Jingyu, an animal behavior expert at Dalian Medical University, decided to train China's own guide dogs after noticing that, unlike their Western counterparts, blind Chinese athletes did not have guide dogs to help them during the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games, said Liang Jia, a staff member at the Dalian center.
The puppies -- mostly Golden Retrievers and Labradors, chosen for their gentle, friendly nature -- are first sent to foster families for a year to learn to live with humans, before returning to the center for another year of professional training. It is a lengthy and strict process -- along the way, about 60% of the dogs will be disqualified and put up for adoption as pet dogs.
"If we had more sufficient funding, we'll be able to train more guide dogs," Liang said."But the reality is, we can only operate on the money we've got."
Probably if people in China didn’t eat them...there would be enough guide dogs! 🤷🏻♂️
they can take duterte so they'll have 201 guide dogs.
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