A few days a week, Pat McKenna makes an hour and a half commute from his home in Highland Park,

New Jersey to its office in Newark.

It involves a bus, a train, and a lot of walking through busy streets and intersections.

It's a complicated journey, and McKenna gets some help from a navigator.

I leave the house at 7 a.m.

There are several crossings where we stop.

I listen for traffic, and he watches for traffic.

And when it sounds like the coast is clear, he gets us across an intersection.

At the train platform, he navigates me along the edge of this yellow bumpy surface right before the drop to the tracks.

The train will arrive. He will find an open door. That gets me to my stop in Newark.

He finds the stairs for me. We navigate

up and out to my office building. He knows when the elevator opens to race over to it. We go up to

my floor. He finds my agency's office door and then my office within. He has to be on point and on focus the whole time.

It really is a partnership endeavor.

McKenna is blind, and his companion is an 80-pound Labrador mix named Raven.

He's one of nearly 20,000 guide dogs that are currently active around the world.

Guide dogs are the Navy SEALs of canines. They go through an elite training protocol before they're

entrusted to be a blind person's partner. Something as simple as chasing a squirrel one too many

times can disqualify them from consideration.

And for the organizations that produce these dogs, the process is long and costly.

This animal has been specially bred, raised, and trained with all these remarkable qualities and traits.

The cost has been approximated to be around $75,000,

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