C.A.V.E. Students Train Future Seeing Eye Dog

When you walk into the CAVE, the Cambridge Agriculture and Veterinary Education building, you probably wouldn’t even notice the yellow Labrador sitting under Agriculture teacher Sarah Nerswick’s desk.

The yellow lab, a young puppy, is named Falcon, and he’s training to become a seeing-eye dog.

Grace Fabio, a junior, is not blind, but she will have Falcon for a year to socialize and train him.

Nerswick and Fabio made the decision to adopt Falcon, a seeing eye dog from the Southeastern Guide Dogs organization, located in Florida.

Nerswick got the idea to adopt a guide dog from Islands High School in Savannah, GA.

“I was just like, hey, why don’t we try this?” Nerswick said.

Fabio went to multiple meetings, then through an interview process, before she was accepted to take care of Falcon.

Falcon will be staying with Nerswick in the CAVE, the building behind the student parking lot, until August of next school year. Hopefully, Falcon will be able to walk with Fabio to all of her classes to get him comfortable interacting with humans before he becomes a certified seeing eye dog.

Fabio will only have Falcon for a year before he goes back to Florida to get specific training.

“There’s somebody out there that needs a dog like Falcon, and we’re just a little part of his life,” Nerswick said.

Though Fabio has only had Falcon for about a month, the puppy’s tail begins wagging as soon as she walks in the door of the CAVE.

Every day during fifth period, Fabio comes out to train and play with Falcon.

Fabio grabs a handful of treats, and voices a couple commands such as “sit,” “heel,” “stay” and so on, and Falcon obeys all of them, all the while his tail wagging.

“He’s still a puppy, very playful,” Fabio said.

Falcon goes home with Fabio every day at 3:30 and has a special pillow he likes to sleep on while Fabio does her homework, and every morning Falcon comes back to school with Fabio, ready to start a fun day of training, and hanging out with his temporary family.