MEET MY GUIDE DOGS

On this part of my website, I’d like to introduce you to the five beautiful guide dogs I’ve had the greatest of pleasure working with: Troy, Isaac, Eddy, Max, and Sophie. To see photos and read about them, please click on their names at the top of each page.

INTRODUCTION

I was trained to use a long cane well over a year before I first applied for a guide dog. In 1983, I’d gone to Nelson in Lancashire with my close friends, Philip and Gwyneth, and their two boys, Matthew and Timothy. While there, we visited the breathtaking Ingleton Waterfalls. At one point, I was stood with my back remarkably close to an exceptionally steep drop. It appears I wasn’t aware of it! Philip was panicking because it would have been no more than a couple of steps back and I’d have totally disappeared! He didn’t want to reach out and touch my arm as he was really worried doing that might make me step back. So, using gentle verbal encouragement, he successfully got me to take several steps forward – safely away from that terrifying drop! Thank you Philip!

It was while we were in Lancashire that Philip began noticing just how bad my eyesight was getting. He plucked up the courage and had a chat with me about getting help with my mobility. That’s how my training course on how to get about safely with a long cane got under way.

I still had a small amount of somewhat useful central vision, although its usefulness was getting less and less. My Mobility Instructor, Malcolm Jones, told me I needed to use my long cane as if I couldn’t see anything at all. The reason was that if people around town saw me avoiding things that my cane hadn’t found, they’d get used to it. Then when I’d lost my remaining sight, they might assume I could still see to a certain degree.

I remember one day while walking through town, I came to the corner of a street where I needed to cross over. Straight ahead of me I could see two old gentlemen enjoying a chat, their bags of shopping placed at their feet. All I could hear was Malcolm telling me to ignore anything I can see. So, I began honing in on my unsuspecting victims! Those poor old guys must have wondered what on earth was going on as my long white cane started swiping through their shopping. Thankfully the penny dropped quickly, and grabbing up their bags, they helped me safely past. How nice of them to accept my profuse apologies and thanks!

On another occasion as I was walking through town, I noticed a lady coming out of a shop doorway right in front of me. She was carrying a number of boxes that went above her head height. The boxes were obviously obscuring her vision, and as she fell over the end of my long cane, her boxes scattered in all directions. Another day when I was walking back home from town around school kicking-out time, I spotted a girl running straight at me down the pavement. Still hearing Malcom’s words in my mind, I just carried on, but she still kept running straight at me. I thought to myself, ‘she’s bound to change direction sooner or later . . . Isn't she?’ She also fell over my long cane, bending it in the process. As she disappeared over to my left, she narrowly missed going under a bus that was about to pull up at the bus stop! How on earth she didn’t end up under its wheels I will never know!

Shortly after my application for a guide dog was submitted in 1985, I was assessed at home. At the time, I was single and still living with my parents and sister. Back then, the South Wales area was under the care of the Guide Dogs training centre at Cleve House in Exeter. I can clearly remember standing at our garden gate and being asked how far I could see. I looked along the road and told him I could see the bus stop. The bus stop in question was over 100 yards away! “That’s torn it...” I thought to myself, but he then asked me to concentrate on the bus shelter and tell him what I could see between it and us. “Nothing . . .” I said. The problem was I was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa, causing me to suffer from tunnel vision. So anything outside of my central area of vision was literally out of sight. That’s not to say it was like looking through a cardboard tube, it wasn’t dark or black. It was more like when you look at a photo of a bird sat on a branch. The bird is in sharp focus, but everything else around it is blurred or out of focus. Thankfully, that was sufficient for me to be placed on the waiting list.

While doing a little research into Retinitis Pigmentosa, I discovered that one of the primary causes is where a man and woman – who share the same grandparents – have children together. Having traced a good deal of my family’s history, I knew that my great great grandparents, William Godwin and Emily Gray, who were from Nailsea near Bristol, were indeed first cousins. My mum’s family had no idea where her blindness had come from, it was a complete mystery to them. She was the only one to inherit “RP” as it’s referred to, none of her three brothers had inherited it. Both my sister and I inherited RP from mum, but my sight deteriorated far more quickly than my sister’s did. To top it off, further research on my Godwin family revealed that William Godwin’s grandparents, Benjamin Godwin and Ann Doggett, were also cousins!

By the time a suitable dog had been found for me and I’d been invited to go on class in 1986, Su and I had been married a little while. We both felt that the house we’d moved into wasn’t suitable for a guide dog as there was no garden. We hadn’t purposely chosen a house without a garden, we were led to believe that the area at the back of the house was ours, when in fact it wasn’t. We didn’t find that out until one day when a large digger and building materials suddenly appeared! Work had begun on building a house there! On that basis, I told Guide Dogs my circumstances had changed, but I didn’t clarify in what way. Come to think of it, they didn’t ask me either. Over the years, we’ve heard of and met people who have successfully coped with having a guide dog while living in a house with little or no garden. If only we’d told them what had caused my circumstances to change, they would have discussed it with us, and my training would most likely have gone ahead.

After a rare mishap when my face met the wing mirror of a lorry that was overhanging the pavement, Su decided that it was time to think about re-applying for a guide dog! When she first saw me after that incident, she thought I’d been beaten up. By this time, my maternal grandparents’ circumstances had also drastically changed. My grandmother had passed away, and my grandfather was too frail to look after himself and had moved in with one of his sons and daughters-in-law in Cardiff. Su and I, along with our 6 month-old son Paul, had the opportunity of moving into their home – a place I’d known all my life, and where my mum had lived since she was about 9 years-old until marrying my dad in 1951. This meant we really did have an ideal sized garden, and so I reapplied for a guide dog.

In the meantime, I continued getting out and about with my long cane. There were times when I needed to take Paul out, and as he was still very young, holding his hand as we walked along really wasn’t an option. Su had the brilliant idea of getting a baby carrier, something that was worth its weight in gold! If you’re unsure what I'm referring to, it’s similar in design to a backpack with padded straps that go around your shoulders and another non-padded strap that goes around your waist. Instead of having storage compartments, it has a sling-seat for a young child to sit in. The one we bought was made of a strong but lightweight aluminium frame, with a comfy sling-seat. Well I assume it was comfy, Paul never complained. Paul also wore a harness that clipped onto the frame which kept him nice and safe. I absolutely loved taking him out for walks, it gave me an incredible sense of independence.

From a very young age, Paul seemed to understand that dad couldn’t see anything at all. I remember one day when our little nephew Edward was crawling across our living room carpet. Paul spotted me heading straight for Edward and got himself over to me as fast as he could in his walker. I could hear his walker rattling across the room towards me, and grabbing my right trouser leg with both hands, he gave an almighty tug, very clearly telling me where he wanted me to go. His quick action kept little Edward well out of harm’s way!

Paul even developed his own technique of warning me that something was in our way when we were out together. Sometimes I heard “dad!” in my ear, felt a vigorous tap-tap-tap on my shoulder, or even both! We’d slow down a bit, negotiate the obstacle, and then continue on our way. I suppose you could say he was my first little guide dog – a two-legged one! He could even warn me of something on the pavement he didn’t want me to tread in, using basic commands along the lines of: “Dad!” Tap-tap-tap. “Poo!”

Some well-meaning person (or people), horrified at seeing Paul and I getting out and about like this, reported me to Social Services. I soon had a phone call from someone at the department wanting to arrange a visit. They wanted to observe us, spot any potential problems or dangers, and take any necessary steps. Thankfully, they could see how well-thought out it was, appreciated the safety aspect and the practicality of it, and gave us the green light to continue on doing what we’d been doing. That was such a relief!

It wasn’t long before I was invited to attend another Guide Dogs assessment, during which I was able to have a trial walk with a dog in training. What an experience that was! His name was Herbie, and he was nearing the end of his advanced training. It was decided that I met the criteria, and I was once again put on the waiting list. Me being me, I began convincing myself that they wouldn’t let me walk with a dog that wasn’t suited to me, so, Herbie must be the one they are thinking of matching me with, right? Wrong!

In June 1989, I spent three weeks training with my first guide dog Troy, at Trevillian House on Cathedral Road in Cardiff. This was now the training centre of Guide Dogs for South and Mid Wales that had opened in September 1986. From that moment on, my mobility was to change for the better, and not just a little, but dramatically!

MORE INFORMATION

On the official website of Guide Dogs for the blind, you can find out about the various ways you can make a donation, or learn what volunteering opportunities are available. You can also get in touch with your local Guide Dogs Community Team to request an official Guide Dogs Speaker to visit your club, group, institute, organisation or school to give a talk about the training and work of Guide Dogs, and hear first-hand how these “life-changers” vastly improve the mobility and quality of life for their visually impaired handlers.