Randy Bachman to perform in support of Israel guide dogs

Bracha Ben Abraham and her guide dog Dinka

TORONTO — Hey You, famed rocker Randy Bachman will be Takin’ Care of Business  and asking concert goers to Gimme Your Money Please, on behalf of a Canadian charity that helps provide guide dogs to visually impaired Israelis.

Bachman, co-founder of the Guess Who, and later of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, will perform at a concert on June 9 at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, to benefit the Canadian Friends of Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind.

The “Evening of Miracles” concert is the sixth such event staged by the charity and the main fundraising vehicle for Canadian supporters of guide dogs in Israel, said Sara Gabriel, executive-director of the organization.

With two weeks to go before showtime, 600 tickets had been sold and about $330,000 had been raised.

“We expect to raise $350,000, God willing,” Gabriel said. “We are grateful for the way the community has accepted and embraced us.”

Training a puppy to become an accomplished guide dog and partner to its human host is a time-consuming, expensive and laborious process, she explained.

It costs $25,000 per puppy to prepare them properly, and some 30 per cent of the dogs wash out of the program. These dogs are given as companion animals to others who need them, including children with autism or people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind (IGDCB) prepares about 32 to 35 dogs per year at its facility in Beit Oved, about 20 minutes south of Tel Aviv, between Rehovot and Rishon Lezion.

Dogs are schooled to respond to commands in Hebrew and they are trained to deal with the unique Israeli environment, including such things as bus stand posts and streetlights in the middle of the sidewalk, cars parked on sidewalks and other barriers that would be unfamiliar to guide dogs trained elsewhere.

There are 27,000 blind or visually impaired people in Israel, a far higher proportion of the population than in other countries. Besides people who are blind from birth or through disease, there are others who lost their sight in terrorist attacks or while serving in the military.

There is a one-year waiting list for guide dogs, and a pending expansion of the IGDCB’s facilities is expected to help improve that situation, she said.

The IGDCB works with Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind, an Ottawa-based national organization. Six years ago, the Canadian association sent a puppy to Israel that proved so capable, it was used to sire other guide dogs.

“Morris made aliyah,” Gabriel quipped about the dog, adding that two years ago, one of his offspring was sent back to Canada.

Exchanging puppies is one of the ways the Canadian and Israeli organizations co-operate. They exchange information and dog semen, and the Israeli agency is planning to send one of its trainers to participate in an international conference in Montreal this summer, she added.

“I think people are more conscious of people with disabilities,” Gabriel said, referring to the increased interest in the Canadian Friends group. “Usually we see our dogs as pets. But people also see what a dog can do.

“Every human being deserves independence. There are many methods of mobility for a blind person, companions, canes. But with canes, you need to look for obstacles. With dogs, obstacles disappear and people become independent. Their self-worth increases.

“When someone is with a dog, people see them as a person, not as someone who is blind.

“They are like you and me, with one disability. With a guide dog, they can see. The guide dog is their eyes.” 

For more information or to buy concert tickets, call 416-577-3600