Guide Dog Helps Blind Adventurer Climb Mountains

A dog named Quinn helps Randy Pierce, who went blind decades ago, to climb the mountains he loved in his youth.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on August 03 2010

Wikimedia Commons image

Randy Pierce, a man from Nashua, New Hampshire, has always loved adventure sports. As a child, he loved scaling the mountains that surrounded his home. So, when he discovered he had a neurological condition that was causing the gradual loss of his sight in his early 20s, the diagnosis came as a devastating blow.

“My life, in my mind, was coming to a complete end,” he told the Keene Sentinel.

As the years passed, Pierce lost more and more of his vision. He began walking with a cane, and a decade ago, he found himself completely blind. Luckily, he had a friend to help him through: Ostend, a golden retriever who served as his guide dog.

But three years later, things turned from bad to worse. Pierce’s brain condition was affecting his motor skills, leaving him wheelchair bound—and his faithful guide dog died of cancer.

The loss of his dog “almost made me more focused,” said Pierce. “It’s okay to step back, just as long as you don’t lose sight of where you’re going.” Over the next couple of years, he worked hard to regain his strength and get back on his feet. And, in 2006, he applied to be paired with a new guide dog. This time, Pierce had even bigger goals for himself: he wanted to climb mountains, just as he had in his youth.

Fortunately, he found just the right partner: a Labrador named Quinn. With Quinn’s guidance, Pierce is able to climb the mountains he loved in his childhood again—and in May, he and Quinn climbed New Hampshire’s White Mountains with Pierce’s girlfriend, Tracy Goyette. When they reached the summit, Pierce proposed to Goyette. She said yes.

Goyette sometimes worries about her fiancé climbing the jagged rocks, unable to see where he’s going. She climbs ahead, but when she looks back, she knows she has no cause for concern.

“When I notice a particularly rough spot, I do worry and I pause and look back, ready to chime in with a word of warning,” Goyette wrote in her blog.

“What is my most common sight when I do that? I see Quinn with as much concern on his face as I feel at that moment. I also see this remarkable dog making the right decision most of the time.

“Seeing Quinn’s work day after day does inspire trust and comfort and has taught me, through experience, to believe.”

Filed under: Animals and Pets,

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