A Tribute To My Guide Dogs

(Cartoon Of a puzzled Guide Dog, lead disappearing down a man hole)

Guide Dogs For The Blind have been part of my life since the age of 10 when my mother trained with her first GD. This was a black lab, donated to GDBA, called Salote, named after the Queen of Tonga
I then invited staff from the Exeter Training Centre to visit my school and talk about the work of Guide Dogs. something that hadn't been done before despite the fact that the school in question was The West Of England School For The Visually Handicapped, also based in Exeter.
For my English "O"level Oral examination I gave a talk on Guide Dogs and had to answer numerous questions.

My First Guide Dog, Yale, a yellow lab X golden retriever became part of our family in May 1989.
Sadly in October of the same year I underwent cataract surgery on my good eye and was relieved to find this gave me back sufficient sight to be relatively imdependant again. I had to make the horribly difficult decision to return Yale to GDBA.
I knew that the surgery was only a short term measure and that my sight would continue to deteriorate, but for the time being, I had sufficient sight not to need to use Yale and he was only 2 years old, capable of being an excellent guide to someone in more need than I.

Towards the end of 1992 my vision became very unstable and in October I retrained with my second Guide dog, Dale, a yellow lab.

Dale was a real character, complete with a black spot of hair on his flank, marking his otherwise extremely pale yellow coat. When I was first introduced to him on a home visit, my wife tried to clean off this spot thinking it an oil or grease mark!
Dale was an excellent guide who had to contend with some extreme changes in his working life. When we commenced our partnership, we lived in a quiet area of Poole where the traffic was low, obstacles rare and his work load relatively easy.
Whilst I was working Dale I developed accute Glaucoma as a complication to my eye condition and underwent a number of surgical procedures to try to resolve the problem. I was often in extreme pain and unable to work Dale; who would curl up with me when I was confined to bed.
I lost my residual vision which meant more of the responsiblity for the working partnership fell on Dale's shoulders. we also moved house and our new home was right on a three lane one way traffic system in the heart of Poole. Poor Dale had no time to work up when in harness as we were thrown right into extremely busy traffic, multiple Pelican crossings and mountains of students and pavement obstacles immediately we set foot outside the door.
I believe that the stress was too much and poor Dale developed Epilepsy. Dale had a long and happy retirement in Exmouth with Peter England and family, for which I am extremely grateful.

Following the retirement of Dale at the start of 1997, I retrained with dog number 3, again a lab x retriever called Zack.
I noticed during training with Zack that he had an odd movement in harness, a sort of stumble, but was reassured that although he had had a problem with his shoulder while a puppy, he was fighting fit.

During my work with Zack this "stumbling" problem became more pronounced. Every now and again, his front left shoulder would give out under him and I would have to take his full weight through the harness for a minute or two while he recovered his balance.
In the Spring of 1998 Zack and I returned to the Guide Dog centre in Exeter for a period of intensive work to investigate the problem further. We did lots of work including filming Zack as I worked him to try and discover why I was getting this feeling of him stumbling. By the end of this investigation period, my instructors at GDBA could not find a trace of this "stumbling" and quite frankly, didn't believe there was a problem.
I was convinced that Zack was experiencing this difficulty and that it wouldn't be fair to continue working him, so I reluctantly handed him back to the Association.
The Area Supervisor, Paul, agreed to take Zack home with him and work Zack in and out of the Centre each day, as I was certain that only by working Zack regularly would he find the fault. After a couple of weeks, Paul called me to say that he had indeed found the same thing, a "stumbling" movement and told me that Zack would be retired
Zack returned to live with his Puppy walkers and to my knowledge is having a fun retirement looking after the Puppies At Walk.

In the summer of 1998 I trained again with GD number 4, a simply "red hot" guide called Ellis.
Ellis had qualified with another gentleman, but had been withdrawn for scavenging in harness; I was advised of this on the home matching visit, but wasn't concerned about it as I believe this to be a fault in the handling of the dog not a fault in the dog itself.
On our first matching walk, Ellis showed just how good he was by guiding me around the one way system, in and out of traffice, over the multiple crossings etc without a fault.
Ellis and I qualified in just 9 days! We were such a perfect working unit, I joked that he could have come in the post!
In August 1999 I was diagnosed with Insulin Dependant Diabetes, just 2 days before we went away for a family holiday. Whilst away, Ellis had a weeks break with my parents. On the Thursday of that week, my parents phoned to say that Ellis had been taken seriously ill and was on a drip in our vets hospital wing.
His condition didn't improve and on the following Monday, GDBA arranged to take him to a Veterinary Hospital in New Market. Sadly Ellis passed away just hours after arriving at the hospital. A postmortem revealed that he had died from an unidentified poison which had caused massive failure in all major organs.
This has to have been the most horrific fortnight in my life to date. Two days after Ellis died, I attended my first appointment at the Diabetic Clinic and was shocked to be told I had to start on insulin injections immediately.
Ellis was a special Guide Dog, endless energy, cheeky personality and the best Guide I've known. R.I.P. lad.
(Picture of Ellis)

As you can imagine I was in no rush to apply for a replacement Guide Dog and decided to take a break while I adjusted to the loss of Ellis and the implications of my Diabetes. However, by the middle of November 1999 I was feeling disadvantaged by my lack of independant mobility and decided to reapply.
In February 2000, I qualified with my 5th dog, a black lab cross retriever called Olly.
Whenever you train with a Guide Dog, you're told that it takes 12 months on avarage to become a good working partnership, but up untill Olly I hadn't really noticed this.
Olly's work had been fine during our first year together, but he was often hesitant, pausing to check my intentions and it was almost exactly a year after qualifying that he suddenly clicked; finally taking responsibilty and appearing much more confident, as if he'd suddenly decided, "OK, so let's get on with it then."
Olly,like dale before him, had some changes to cope with during his working life. In February 2005 I returned to full time employment and Olly and I began the daily trudge to and from work. As part of my job at this time, I had to make home visits to clients throughout the Poole & Bournemouth area. Our office moved in April and we moved home in the June. In October I changed jobs and Olly had to again adjust to new routes etc.
In February 2006 after some work with Olly who was being less than concientious at the time, it was mutually agreed that Olly should retire, our safety having been compromised in heavy traffic situations.
Olly remained with me as a pet until October 2007 when I again applied for a replacement guide. My Father kindly offered to take Olly and he is currently enjoying a well deserved retirement.
(Picture of Olly)

In October of 2007 I trained with Ivan, who was to be my 6th Guide Dog.
I knew that this would be my last chance of working a Guide Dog. The effects of nearly 10 years as a Diabetic were showing and I had lost the feeling in my left foot, making my mobility increasingly difficult. I hoped that working a Guide Dog would enable me to walk more, improving my mobility and general levels of fitness. Sadly, though Ivan and I qualified as a working unit, the first couple of weeks quickly showed that I simply wouldn't be able to do sufficient work with Ivan to make the partnership viable. To become a good unit, you need lots of time walking, working the dog and this just wasn't possible given my poor mobility and my need to fullfill my commitments to my employer.
I had to face up to the reality that my mobility was not going to improve, but will in fact deteriorate as the effects of the Neuropathy increase, so I had to return Ivan, to be retrained to provide a Guide for someone else.
(Picture of Ivan)

At the time of composing this page, I have returned to using a Long Cane for my mobility aid rather than a Guide Dog and I'm waiting for an appointment with a Physiotherapy Team to assess me for walking aids. It appears that I will have to use a walkingstick for support and a Long Cane for mobility.

I can't close this page without adding my thanks and expressing my deep appreciation, even love to those people, the domestic staff, admin and especially all those involved in the training and wellfare of the Guide Dogs I have been fortunate enough to have owned and worked over the years. One of the wonderful benefits of working a Guide Dog, is to have been able to meet so many special people, many of which I've been fortunate enough to call Friends.

My involvement with The Guide Dogs For The Blind Association has included many years as a Speaker, Fund Raising Branch chairman and Guide Dog Owners Representative and I have been proud to support the Association in these roles; but I'm sure that things won't end here.
My Wife, eldest daughter, sister and mother are all working Guide Dog Owners and long may they continue to be so.

If you wish to know more about the Guide Dogs For The Blind Association or would like details of how to make a donation, please click on the link below.

Guide Dogs For The Blind
To see more pictures of my guide Dogs click on the Gallery link below.
Gallery
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A Tribute To My Guide Dogs

Created by Blindo