MY BLACK BEAUTY

MY GUIDE DOG

Well my Bloggets, I have woken from the darkness, which filled my heart with pain this weekend. So thank God for that? I slept well and woke up raring to go! As I have just said to my best friend in a mail, go where?

Our canary, “Irish, of course, is singing like he is prepping for the X Factor? Ahahaha. God, I wish someone would tell him, he has failed the first round?

Does he not know it is winter and he should be being all quiet now? He is a happy little thing and I do love him! My two dogs, have both took themselves back to bed. Haha, lazy lumps! They must have been cold  last night, as before I came to bed, well, I say last night, it was two this morning, they were both squashed together on one of their blankets, rather than one each? I just left them there, as you just don’t know why they do things, but they should be allowed to have some option?

Our guide dogs are trained from the age of six weeks, in fact before they are born; their destiny is decided for them.  

They use words I really don’t like, “Brooding bitches!” They keep the female dogs who may have failed as a guide dog, and can not be used for police or dog for the deaf, and use her as a oven, basically. She has a batch of eyes for the blind or teeth for the police, haha, and every year that is.  Poor things?

My Black beauty was one of five. Her sister became a guide dog, her brother a police dog and the other two, God knows? But to be born for a purpose, is awful and if us humans were born for a reason, all hell would kick off?

Having said that, what is the alternative? If not for our dogs, how would we get about? How would  we get our shopping, dry cleaners, keys cut, visit the theatre, cinema, gym and restaurants, or whatever we need to do to survive this existence?  In Japan, they have invented a robot dog. Think about that one? No mess to clean up and I don’t just mean what they do for the toilet, I mean dog hairs etc.? No need to have a full cupboard like we have for their food and toys, blankets, towels and vet books. As well as brushes and other grooming tools and sprays, as well as their harnesses and leads?  We would be able to go places and not worry if our furry friend was going to do things that animals do?

But also think, half the people would not stop and talk to us, as the majority do because of the dog, oh, and they tell you so too! And when we are sad, the robot would not come to  you and put their little heads on your knee, as dogs know when their pack are sad, as do they know when we are pregnant by the way. My dog I had as a pet when I was pregnant with my Teen, knew I was with child, before I did and acted different from I must have been weeks with baby?

They know when someone is due home as well. They have feelings and that is what a robot will not have and the day they have? Is a day to worry!

Our guide dogs have a hard life I think. Like being in the army from the age of six weeks. I struggled with the idea of having a guide dog, but had to in the end.

For two years, I really struggled taking my Son to nursery and then school. I did not use a white cane just my three year old at first to get there and then ears, and mind to get back home. Each day, I would do the dreaded route. I would worry about it all night and have palpitations, as I was getting my little boy and myself ready. I would be very up beet and not let my Son know I was dying inside, as for about three months, my Son would not settle at nursery. Then it all came out that he was worried about how I was getting home? I decided that for him, I had to give in to the sighted world, one which I had left when my boy was a year old, but only physically, not mentally. Until just four years ago, I had not accepted my blindness.

I will always remember picking up the telephone, phoning the mobility instructor and asking for help. She was so cold and calculating. Checking dates when she could fit me in. Did she not realise, what this call was meaning to me?

I was moving into the blind world, a place I so did not want to be and really was not coping with it at all, remember, all of my life, I was told I would always be able to see, well from the  age of six, from when I started to go to Russia, for eye treatment?

I will never forget the first day a young man came out to teach me the white cane. I had the lady from the mobility a few times come out to fill in forms, and she was so nice, but did not understand or connect with my feelings, or my mind. The man, who was called David, was the best person I had ever met as far as anything to do with sight issues. Over the weeks, from that initial first day out with the dreaded stick, feeling a complete fool and failure, he made me feel human. He gave me confidence, like he will never know; he was a great person, a genuine person and one whom I’m eternally grateful for.

I will never forget, the first day I left the house, as a blind person, knowing where she was going? Not being afraid of falling, or banging into things.

All of the mothers at the school were coming up to me, asking how long I had been blind? Like I would ask them how long they had been fat, or anorexic, or ugly? Or how long had they had spots for? You know, people just don’t think?  They could not bring themselves to speak apart from two mums; they avoided me as they thought I was an alcoholic? Because I used to walk in a manner that was not as confident as them, sometimes missing the gaps or brushing against sleeves as I passed by in the narrow corridors of the school.

Anyway, after a year of my Son getting the fun took from him about me using a white cane, cruel kids, I decided I would try a guide dog?

Something I was so against, as I love animals more than I like people? I did not think animals should be used for work. Just loved.

 My X, one of the only nice and helpful things he did say, told me that if I was to have a guide dog, I would be saving it from a life of someone else, who may treat it as a pair of glasses. I thought, he was right and I could love the dog.

Well I began the long process of adopting a child, no, sorry, applying for a guide dog. The paperwork was like, adopting a child though.

The ladies who came out to fill in the forms, really tried to put me off a dog. I guess they need to make sure their expensive animal and efforts are going to the right home?

So many hours of tape recording I had to listen to and lectures I had to attend as well as the five week training, every day, even on a Sunday. After the eighteen months on the waiting list for my guide dog, all the hard work began.

But then a life with my Black beauty and a hero for my six year old, as all his friends loved her, as do we!