It’s pretty easy to forget that guide dogs are working when they’re out and about. While they’re still looking cute and wagging their tails, they’re also serving as the eyes for those who can’t see for themselves. Even though they’re dogs, they have important work to do.

Oxford High School freshman Kennedy Konkle knows this well. She grew up around a mother and grandmother who were always raising leader dogs for the blind and now, she’s raising a dog of her own.

Leader Dogs for the Blind engendered a lifelong love of animals for Konkle, and when she grows up, she’s hoping to go into the veterinary field.

“I grew up going to Leader Dogs for the Blind, and I would play with the puppies,” she said. “That was always something I wanted to help with, I wanted to raise dogs.”

Konkle is currently raising 13-month-old Drake, a black lab with what Konkle calls a “mischievous” personality and a never-ending curious spirit. She’s been with Drake since he was four months old and is getting ready to potentially give him away next month.

“Drake – he’s interested in everything around him,” Konkle said. “If there’s something moving, he loves to try and go sniff it and he loves the water. I would call him mischievous, he likes to poke at other dogs.”

After she gets through her high school classes every day, Konkle heads home to solely train Drake the skills he’ll need to be a leader dog. As Konkle is under 18 and Drake is her first solo dog, her mom Molli Boyd is listed on paper as the lead trainer. But, Konkle does all of the work on her own.

“It’s a lot more than you would think because you do have to make sure he’s being trained every day… It’s a lot of hard work,” she said.

While she works with Drake, Konkle has experienced some unexpected personal growth. She said in the months she’s taken Drake out and about to schools and the like, she has become far more confident speaking to new people than she was before.

“I’m not the best with public speaking, and I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten a lot better with that,” Konkle said. “Like, I went around Brandon High School to walk the halls with (Drake) and I was a lot better than I had been at speaking in front of a crowd of people.”

There’s something special about training her first guide dog, and Konkle knows it will be hard to say goodbye to Drake when the time comes. But, she’s happy to know that he’ll spend his days making life a little easier for someone else, and she’ll be filling out the paper work to raise another dog as soon as possible.

“I want to help (blind) people just become more independent, because I know that can be hard,” she said. “And I think that’s possible, not just because they get a dog but because they become more confident.”