Tiny Horse Trains as Guide for Blind Muslim Woman

DEARBORN, Mich. — Mona Ramouni seems more nervous than Cali as they ride the rattling bus to work for the first time.

"You're a good girl, you're OK, you're OK," Ramouni says softly, stroking Cali — a 3-year-old former show horse that stands about 2 1/2 feet tall, weighs about 125 pounds and has trained since November to become Ramouni's guide.

Ramouni lost her sight to retinopathy of prematurity shortly after birth. She relies on her family to guide her around the Detroit suburbs where she's lived, studied and worked for all of her 28 years.

She wants more independence, but a traditional guide dog isn't an option. Many Muslims consider dogs unclean, and Ramouni, an observant Sunni, respects her Jordanian-born parents' aversion to having a dog in the home where she lives along with three of her six siblings.
The answer, she hopes, is Cali, short for Mexicali Rose.

"I want a horse that will be a partner for the next 30 or so years. This is a really awesome little horse ... and what I really want is to be able to take her places and go places with her that neither of us ever would have been able to do without each other," Ramouni says.

While most Muslims believe dogs can violate ritual purity, horses are seen as "regal animals," says Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relation's Michigan chapter.

Still, "there would be concerns about bringing a horse into certain establishments and areas of worship as well," he says.

There are only a handful of the miniature animals trained as guides for the blind in the United States. Cali's trainer, Dolores Arste, knows of five others.

"Taking on a horse as a guide is a huge commitment, same as a dog but with more physical needs," Arste, 61, says. "It is not a novelty. It is a real working animal."

Dogs are unclean to muslims so she needs a 125 pound horse. That would be fine but the picture shows her on the bus with the horse. That is a huge animal for the people on the bus to have to deal with. If she just walked down the street with it, I would have no real problem.