Who is Ripon High?

This question elicits an automatic response of a few names and faces, but the overlooked, lesser known heroes attending our beloved school, are hidden away in the shadows.

Hailey Leochler is an RHS sophomore who participates in an outside-of-school club called, “Guide Dogs for the Blind,” or, “GDB.”

Leochler is what the club calls, a “raiser,” which means that she raises puppies to an extent before returning them back to the program for further  extensive training.

“We, as a GDB puppy raiser, at nine to eight weeks old, raise them up to fourteen months. We teach them basic obedience, take them to other places to socialize them with people, new environments, new samples, new smells. Then […] they go back to one of the campuses in San Rafael or in Oregon, and they’ll get their formal training to become an actual guide dog.” Leochler states.

Leochler does not know anyone who is blind personally, but loves the idea of helping anyone out that she can. All Leochler did to find out about GDB was search what extracurriculars she could participate in online. Leochler claims that GDB was the first choice to pop up and after receiving the information about GDB, the rest is history.

“My experience with Guide Dogs for the Blind has been positive for the entire year that I’ve done it for. They are all really nice, they all communicate really well, everybody gets along […] So far, I love the club, and have never had a negative thing to say about it.”

At the moment, Leochler is not raising a puppy, but plans to over the summer. With pending permission from the school, Leochler hopes to bring her guide-dog-in-training to school all of next year, to acclimate it to daily life.

“I do GDB because it helps people in my community. It helps people who have a seeing disability be able to have more access to doing what they love to do. It feels good to help other people out,” Leochler states.