GDUI’s membership includes active, independent individuals from many backgrounds, age groups and walks of life. Accompanied by their guide dogs, GDUI members live full and rewarding lives as college students, corporate executives, parents, teachers, social workers, software engineers, writers, performers, day-care professionals, store managers, members of the clergy, political lobbyists, research scientists, travel agents, farmers, reporters and retirees, among others. While the majority of its members are guide dog handlers, GDUI’s membership also includes guide-dog training and mobility professionals, friends and family of people with guide dogs, prospective handlers, puppy-raisers and others. GDUI welcomes anyone, sixteen years or older, with an interest in the dog guide movement.
The one thing all of GDUI’s members have in common is a heart-felt respect for the remarkable work done by skillfully trained and handled guide dogs. GDUI members raise, train or work with dogs from more than twenty different schools and training programs yet share a common appreciation of the role these dogs play in our lives and the lives of blind people around the world.