“I can see, but I can’t see.”
That is how Joseph Johnson, also known as Joey, explains living with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare inherited eye disease that damages the retina and gradually reduces vision, often starting with night blindness and peripheral vision loss.
For Johnson, a Martinez resident and Harlem High graduate, the condition first showed up in his late 20s as trouble seeing at night and bumping into things he did not realize were in his path. Over time, it became harder to ignore and harder to work around.
“It’s like peering through straws,” said Johnson.
Johnson does not tell that story for sympathy. He tells it because many people still misunderstand blindness.
“Blindness is a spectrum,” said Johnson who still has some central vision but much of the surrounding area is gone. That means a parking lot, a staircase without contrast, a crowded store, or a dim restaurant can become hazardous even when, to the outside world, he may not look blind at all.
That gap between what people assume disability looks like and what it actually looks like is where Tucker enters the picture. Tucker is Johnson’s guide dog through Leader Dogs for the Blind, the Rochester Hills, Michigan, nonprofit founded in 1939 by three members of the Uptown Lions Club of Detroit after a fellow Lion, Dr. Glenn “Doc” Wheeler, wanted a guide dog after losing his sight.
The organization now provides guide dog services and white cane training at no cost to clients, and Johnson is adamant about what that really entails. He said the true cost of breeding, raising, training, and matching a guide dog team (dog and person) exceeds $100,000, even though the client pays nothing for the dog or the training.
The money goes toward far more than one animal and one handler. Leader Dogs for the Blind says its dogs are raised by volunteers from birth before entering formal guide dog training. Dogs are then matched to clients based on factors that include travel pace, lifestyle, physical size, stamina, and daily needs.
Clients train with instructors either on campus or in home settings, and the support does not stop at graduation. Johnson said the public often sees a calm dog in a harness and assumes the work begins and ends there. It does not. The animal has already gone through years of development, and the handler still has to do the daily work that keeps the team sharp.
Johnson said that part matters because service dogs are still dogs. They are highly trained, but they are not machines. They need consistency, repetition, and strong handling. He said Tucker’s training has to be reinforced every day through commands, routines, care, and public work. The partnership also comes with the ordinary responsibilities of dog ownership, including food, grooming, routine veterinary care, and preventive treatments. What makes the difference is structure. The dog learns the job, the handler learns the dog, and both keep learning together.
That is one reason Johnson pushes back against the assumption that all service dogs are basically the same. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, a service animal is a dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks directly related to a person’s disability. Those tasks vary widely. Some dogs guide people who are blind or have low vision. Others alert to seizures or blood sugar changes, remind a person to take medication, retrieve items, interrupt a panic attack, or perform other trained tasks connected to a disability. Service dogs can come in different breeds, sizes, and builds because different disabilities require different kinds of work.
The ADA is the federal civil rights law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination in public life, including when they use a service animal. In most public places, service dogs must be allowed to accompany their handlers even where pets are not allowed. When it is not obvious that a dog is a service animal, businesses may ask only two questions: whether the dog is required because of a disability and what work or task the dog has been trained to perform. They cannot demand paperwork, require the dog to demonstrate its training, ask about the person’s diagnosis, or insist on a vest or special identification. They can, however, expect the dog to be under control and housebroken.
Johnson said that is where many public interactions still go sideways. Too many people approach a working dog as if it were a pet they are entitled to touch. Too many businesses still do not understand what they can ask, what they cannot ask, and how to tell the difference between a well-trained service dog and an ordinary pet that should not be in a restaurant in the first place. Johnson said strangers should not pet Tucker, whistle at him, talk to him, feed him, or try to break his focus. When the harness is on, Tucker is working. Distracting him is not harmless and can be potentially unsafe.
He also wants people to understand that not every disability is visible. A person may have low vision, autism, epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, or another qualifying disability that is not obvious to a stranger scanning the room for a wheelchair, cane, or some other visual cue. Johnson said assumptions can be as harmful as outright denial, especially when people decide someone must be faking because they do not match a stereotype.
That is part of why one recent meal at Red Robin in Evans stayed with him. Johnson said the general manager recognized the situation immediately and handled it without turning it into a production.
“From the moment Tucker and my family entered, the general manager acknowledged us calmly and professionally,” Johnson said. “There was no hesitation, no awkwardness, no questioning whether we belonged there.”
The manager asked whether Tucker would sit under or beside the table and looked for seating that would keep the dog out of heavy foot traffic. For Johnson, that mattered because it showed awareness without condescension. “A guide dog team is simply a customer dining like anyone else,” he said.
Johnson also spends time helping people understand what organizations like Leader Dogs for the Blind actually do. He speaks at events and fundraisers around the country, including the organization’s Dinner in the Dark event. He described the fundraiser as an immersive effort to move people past abstract sympathy and into a more honest sense of what vision loss can mean in ordinary life.
In events he’s been the speaker, guests have been asked to eat while blindfolded so they can experience, however briefly, the effort and uncertainty that can come with doing a basic task with limited or no eyesight. His message to those audiences is simple: when the dinner ends, they can remove the blindfold, while many people cannot.
The fundraiser is not built around guilt. It is built around understanding. Johnson said when he speaks, he explains what his vision loss changed, what a guide dog restored, and why steady fundraising matters when programs are provided at no cost to the people who need them. Leader Dogs for the Blind describes Dinner in the Dark as its signature fundraiser, with proceeds supporting programs that help people who are blind or have low vision travel safely and live more independently.
That mission also connects directly to the Augusta Lions Club, where Johnson and Tucker are active members, with Johnson serving as Director of Services and Events. Chapter President William J. Ferguson said, “I am proud to say that Joey Johnson and his guide dog, Tucker, have been active members of the Augusta Lions Club for three years.” Ferguson said the club’s relationship to Leader Dogs for the Blind is not casual or recent. Lions founded the organization in 1939, and locally, the Augusta club continues that service tradition through fundraising, community awareness, and projects tied to vision needs in the CSRA.
The Augusta Lions Club, a local chapter of Lions Clubs International, describes itself as a organization of more than 100 years old comprised of men and women who work together to serve the needs of the Augusta community by recycling eyeglasses and hearing aids, purchasing eyeglasses for people in need in the area, sponsoring Leader Dogs for the Blind and Lions Camp of Georgia, and hosting an annual golf tournament to raise money for community causes. Readers who want to learn more about Leader Dogs for the Blind can visit leaderdog.org. For the local Augusta Lions Club chapter, the contact email is info@augustalionsclub.com.
Johnson’s story is not about asking the public for extra attention. It is the opposite. He wants people to understand the rules: respect the dog, stop guessing at what disabilities are supposed to look like, and let trained teams move through the world without needless stress and friction. He wants people to understand that a service dog is both highly skilled and still a living animal; that access rights are legal rights; and that compassion begins with knowing what you are looking at before you start filling in the blanks with assumptions.
Tucker helps Johnson do things that once became difficult or unsafe, from walking at night in his neighborhood to navigating a store alone. Those tasks may seem like small endeavors to someone not visually impaired. However, for those who are visually impaired, they are not. Being able to perform those tasks is the kind of victory that returns a deserved quality of life to its owner, one safe step at a time.
Nick Lovett is an independent journalist with over 20 years of experience in news media and marketing. A former writer for Aiken Standard and Fort Gordon’s Signal newspaper, she focuses on human interest stories that highlight resilience, community and positive change.
