Good day Bloggets. Gosh
thank you again for your shares and kind comments on yesterday’s blog (The most
difficult diary with a happy ending)
For those who couldn’t see the photograph of the new puppy,
she is a yellow Labrador retriever and Teen said she is so cute with a chubby
face, apart from that, your guess is as good as mine, but yesterday her first
training to be a well behaved pup began. That may take a while I’m sure Puppy
walkers will agree. Puppy walkers in the UK are amazing people who volunteer
their time, in fact a full year where they take the pup from about seven weeks
and teach it the basics until it’s ready to go onto the big school. Without our
PW’s, our dogs would have to go into kennels and to be honest, that isn’t the
best way to get them used to being in a family environment also it’s a little
like being in jail for the dogs so for the dog’s best welfare I prefer the pups
to go with families, but, I seriously don’t know how on earth they do it?
If I have a dog for a week it’s mine and I really can’t
imagine having one for a year especially ones as cute as baby Guide Dogs, then
give them up.
Talking to Puppy walkers, they say they do it because they
see what good the dogs do, they know that they are going to go to someone who
really needs the dog and who will respect and love it. Gosh, well they are
saints as still I couldn’t be so selfless.
I’m in a group online and the puppy walkers refer to the big
day as the puppy snatchers are coming. And that is how I would feel, but they
do it over and over again. Someone I heard of last week had in their lifetime, thirty
eight pups. Gosh, how? Well we know why, the pw’s put up with so much, as any
new puppy, there will be a mess in the house and damage, and the PW’s take the
pups to shopping centres to get them used to noises that no normal puppy’s need
to know about. They are taken on busses in taxi’s trains and coffee shops as
well as restaurants, churches and hopefully theatres as many places as they may
think that a person without sight, or with little sight will want to go.
Sometimes football grounds as a lot of V.I.P’s love their footy.
They are trained from such a young age to sit wait and only
get their food when the whistle is blown. This helps with recall on a field as
the dog will come back to us thinking they are going to be fed. We are taught
to whistle for them, give them a treat for coming back but we are told, to let
them go again as some clever dogs think. “Hmm. One little treat then back home,
or another few dogs to chase and a free run? Let me think…
I’m off!”
If you teach the dog that not every time they are going to
be caught, they will come back to your call…. Well that is the theory.
When they are just over a year, they go onto big school where
they stay in kennels for a short time whilst they do extensive training to
avoid obstacles sit at kerbs find doors etc. As for the obstacles my Waggatail
must have been on holiday that week. Smile…
Talking of Wagga, since she has been on her new tablets
which are a prevention before it’s too late for her joints, she has been like a
two year old dog. I’m so pleased to see that.
The puppy’s final training they go to again, volunteers.
These people are called boarders and they have the dogs for about twelve to
sixteen weeks overnight and weekends. During the day, the dogs go to the office
and do their final training to adapt to their potential new owner. Our dogs are
almost custom made… No good giving me a dog when I first got one who didn’t
like children, as I had to take my dog to school when teen wasn’t a teen. Smile…
Gosh, what am I going to call him next year?
Then we get our amazing life savers. And they are, life
savers. They mainly sometimes always are the only aid we have to leave our four
walls. Though now Guide Dogs UK have a service where by someone again, a
volunteer called a My Guide person is trained and will take a person who needs
to go out to the gym, bell ringing, the hair dressers, hospital or anywhere
they need to go, but though this is great and also can be a life changing companion,
they are not on demand. The MG volunteers are few and far between they give up
one or two hours per week of their time. The youthful Bloggets who are reading
this, how good will that look on your CV?
But if we need urgently to go to the Doctors dentist
hospital or even if we just need a loaf of bread or just to meet a friend for
coffee or a walk in the park, our dogs are here. Not once a week but every
second of the day and our dogs will work for us any time we need them. They
play too though and as well as having the best veterinary care thanks to Guide
Dogs, they get the best food too.
It’s such a shame that Guide Dogs UK are a charity, or have
to be a charity. It costs £50,000 for the partnership of one single guide dog.
And Guide Dogs rely totally on you. Your donations and your time even one hour
per week means the world to someone somewhere in the UK.
Thank you again to those who share this who shared the post
from yesterday, as we need to raise awareness. One hundred people in the UK
start to lose their sight every single day and one person per hour, goes
totally blind. As I keep writing, not everyone is born with an eye condition. A
lot of people lose their sight due to diabetics, or even an accident. Our dogs
mean we can be a part of life, of the community. People talk to us. How lonely
it is to be in the house all day, every day a lot of blind people don’t have
partners and wouldn’t get out if not for their dogs.
There can be a wait for a guide dog for up to two and a half
years, why? Because like I said Guide Dogs is a charity and the partnership is
chosen with great care to specific individuals.
If you can spare any time please contact Guide Dogs on the
contact details I have below and for those who already are helping us, please
share and know just what you, mean to us all. Thank you.
Telephone
and say what area you are calling from
0118
983 8753
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