“You can just tell each dog is destined for bigger and better thing,” Luke Pellegrino tells PEOPLE
NEED TO KNOW
- Luke Pellegrino, an optometry student, raises puppies for Dogs Inc to become guide dogs for people with visual impairments
- Dogs Inc provides guide dogs and service dogs for veterans, first responders and others with medical needs
- Pellegrino said raising guide dogs has deepened his passion for helping people with low vision and visual impairments
An optometry student is raising puppies to eventually help them become guide dogs for people with visual impairments.
Luke Pellegrino is in his second year at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). While he was in his undergraduate studies, he spent a summer working at the Dream Oaks camp in Parrish, Fla., “which is a camp for children with varying medical conditions, including low vision,” he exclusively told PEOPLE.
“I had worked as a tech in optometry before that, and while I was always interested in this field, I really enjoyed working with the kids with low vision and this is where my passion really developed,” Pellegrino, 25, explained.
During one of the camp weeks, Pellegrino was chatting with a camper’s mom who wanted her son to “have a guide dog when he gets older.”…