Max, The Virtual Blind Dog

Here's that guide dog I mentioned. Blew my mind when I first heard about it.

Meet Max, the virtual guide dog.

The dog is not a prop and it's not for a roleplay. People like the members of the Virtual Helping Hands group, and Vito who works with TBI patients, use the dogs as literal guide dogs and for a kind of physical and mental therapy.

Some of the dogs "read" the text chat to their blind handlers. Some enable the handlers to practice that kind of mental-to-physical connection through the handling of the dogs. It's literally physical therapy.

Vito and Virtual Helping Hands have won awards for these things.

Seriously. Stuff like this just blows my mind. It's a huge part of what fascinates me about Second Life.

http://www.virtualguidedog.com/

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Virtual_Guidedog