Labor of love for guide dog trainer in Dalian

Wang Xin, who graduated with a doctorate in psychology from a university in Japan, works at a guide dog training base in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province.

As one of the principals for the base, Wang has worked 16 hours a day for nine years with monthly salary of only 3,500 yuan ($519).

Wang made the decision to be a drillmaster because of her mother's experience.

When Wang was 2 years old, she started to guide her visually impaired mother to walk. However, when Wang obtained a doctorate and returned to her hometown nine years ago, her mother could pick up her at the bus station with the help of a guide dog. Her mother was very excited at that time, Wang said.

The training work is very hard. Wang usually walks over 30,000 steps every day, and her work clothes have at least six tears and four patches on them. Because of her frequent exposure to the sun, her skin has also developed a serious allergy to ultraviolet rays.

The base serves as a public welfare organization that provides guide dogs to blind individuals for free. But a guide dog requires 200,000 yuan for training, which means the base cannot provide attractive salaries to employees, who may not necessarily stay in the job as long as Wang has.

Although, the local government has offered 60,000 yuan in subsidies for guide dogs, and some companies and people who care have donated money, the base still faces hardships.

Since its founding in 2006, the base provides 80 percent of the guide dogs to blind people in China. But, because the training success rate is only 40 percent and a dog needs training for one to one and a half years, the base cannot provide guide dogs in response to every request.

Once, the base refused a man who offered a large amount of money to buy a dog. Wang said the dogs are not a business, a position that the base has adhered to.

In order to solve the funding shortfall, the base now runs an online store on Taobao to sell dog pillows, photos and postcards.

The online store aims to help more people know about us, and accepting guide dogs does not just mean accepting the dog, but accepting blind people as well, Wang said.