EDDY

Born: 25th October 2001

Breed: Golden Retriever x Yellow Labrador

Sire and Dam: Warner and Irene

Littermates: Earl, Eaton, Echo, Edie, Ember, Emma, Eric

Puppy Walkers: Steve and Lorna Biczysko, Northamptonshire

Trainer for advanced stage: Jim Powell

Qualified: June 2003

By the time Eddy and I were trained together in 2003, Guide Dogs for the Blind had relocated from their base in Cathedral Road to a purpose-built training centre on Newport Road in the Rumney area of Cardiff. I can’t remember the reason why we made the decision, but it ended up that Eddy and I did all of our training at home. That’s not to say we didn’t go to the training centre at all, we did, but only a few times.

Out of all of the guide dogs I’ve had, Eddy took the longest to qualify. That’s not because we weren’t well matched, and it wasn’t because he couldn’t do the work properly. Far from it! The problem, if I can call it that, was that he had an extremely strong bond with his trainer, Jim Powell.

Picture this: You’re walking through your town centre, and you see a Guide Dogs trainer and a blind person with their guide dog nearby. The dog is rearing up on its hind legs while in harness, and even doing a kangaroo bounce! That’s exactly what you would have seen if you had been walking in my home town! If Jim had him in harness, he’d have been walking like a little lamb, but for me? He was having none of it and made that quite clear! I’m thrilled to say that we finally qualified, about two weeks more than average, but it involved Jim having to take a gigantic step back, and sending someone else to complete our training. Eddy was a superb, lovable character, which helped us stick by him through a couple of initial problems!

Every time I went to a particular part of town with Eddy, he was always insistent on going into the Somerfield Supermarket. I thought maybe Jim had taken him there when he’d brought Eddy up to introduce him to our town. So the next time I spoke to Jim, I asked him, only to be told that he had never taken Eddy in there. Right up until the time that supermarket closed, it was a battle to get him to go past it. but when I needed to go in there, he was clearly very happy and excited!

Su named one of his favourite games “bum-bums.” He’d stand himself in front of you, facing his rear end towards you, and then start wagging his tail while furiously dancing his bum from side to side. He often did this when you were just about to walk through a doorway, and there was absolutely no way you could get past him! the other time he was very likely to do it was when you were sat in an armchair or on a sofa. He would reverse at you, and make you feel almost imprisoned by his dancing backside!

Eddy, unlike all my other guide dogs, didn’t bark! In fact, from the time I trained with him in May 2003 until the time my fourth guide dog Max arrived in late 2011, I think I’d only heard him bark about three times, and each time it was while we were training. Su and our son Paul hadn’t heard him bark at all! One night though, Su heard something, something that she will never forget!

During one extremely hot spell of weather, she was woken up at 5 in the morning by the most loud and blood curdling wolf howl! She promptly woke me up, and told me: “Tere’s a wolf howling outside!” I told her not to be silly and that it must have been in her dream. The words hadn’t left my mouth when I also heard it! Any film director would definitely have been proud of it! What apparently happened was that, somehow, poor little Eddy had got shut out in the garden when we had gone to bed around 1am. By 5am, he’d had enough and wanted to be let back in!

During another hot spell of weather, Su, Eddy and I went to the Olympia Wetherspoon’s in Tredegar. As we walked in, Su noticed a man outside the pub opposite had a dog that wasn’t on a leash. Because of the heat, the staff at Wetherspoon’s had decided to leave the doors open to try and get some air circulating. Su went to the bar, and I was sat sideways on the chair and had just started to do something on my mobile phone, with Eddy’s leash around my wrist. The dog outside the pub opposite decided to come over the road into Wetherspoon’s to say hello to Eddy. Eddy saw him coming over to our table, and was equally as eager to say hello! Before I knew it, Eddy had lunged forward in excitement, dragging me head-first off the chair onto the floor! Su couldn’t help me up for laughing, she left that to a member of staff and the couple who were sat at the table next to us! It was far from funny for me at the time, but looking back on it, I can’t help but laugh at how funny it must have looked!

Nearly every time we went on holiday to the Cliffden Hotel in Teignmouth with Eddy, Chris from Nottingham and his guide dog Dale would be there too. Eddy and Dale loved going out for walks around the town together, but the part Chris and I liked the best was when our walk involved going all the way along the promenade. We could guarantee what would happen! Chris and Dale would always start off in the lead, with Eddy and I following. Once on the promenade, Eddy would speed up and overtake Dale so that we were in the lead. Only a minute or two later, Dale would speed up and overtake us, and a couple of minutes later, we would overtake them, and so on and so on. That’s the way it was nearly every time, like a Formula 1 race track!

On one occasion, Chris, Dale, Eddy and I had a few days away at Teignmouth staying at the most gorgeous place, the Lynton House Hotel. While there, we decided to go to Shaldon, which involved a short journey on a small boat. To get into the boat, we had to walk down the beach and up a gang plank. Eddy took one look and totally refused to walk up it! We gently coaxed and encouraged him, but there was no way was he moving. His brakes were firmly on! One of the boatsmen suggested that I get on and Eddy would likely follow me. So we tried, and sure enough, he walked about half way up the gang plank before coming to another grinding halt. Some more coaxing and encouraging and he bravely took those last few steps and was safely in the boat. I was dreading getting the boat back later that afternoon, but Eddy’s attitude towards it was totally different! Very confidently, he walked up the gang plank and into the boat as if he’d done it all his life!

Teignmouth is the venue for a few more stories, courtesy of Eddy of course! Chris and I decided one evening to go up to the Lifeboat pub at the top end of Town. this included the Formula 1 race track – otherwise known as the promenade. the plan was to get a taxi back later in the night, but, for some reason, Eddy got a strop on and refused to get in the taxi. No encouragement, coaxing or bribery would get him in! I told Chris to carry on and Eddy and I would walk back to the hotel. All was going well, for a while. About half way back, Eddy pulled over on to some grass for a wee, which I guess may have been the reason why he didn’t want to get in the taxi in the first place. Whatever the case, he managed to turn me in circles a few times, and I didn’t have a clue which direction we should be heading. It was dead quiet. There was no one around, and only one car had passed us. It was Eddy and I against the big bad world. “Right Eddy,” I said, “I’m relying on you 100 percent to get us back to the hotel, you know the way, I don’t.” I encouraged him to “find the way,” and he quite happily walked along the street, but where we were headed, I didn’t have a foggiest! It wasn’t long before he came to a grinding halt. Nothing I did or said could make him move. His brakes were firmly on, and that was it and all about it. I tried listening out for clues as to where we were. To my right I could hear a few seagulls, which in the night time tended to be over on the sea front, so I had a rough idea where the promenade was. But, how to get there was quite another thing. Eddy wasn’t budging! There was not a soul in sight, or in hearing for that matter. I got my mobile out and called Su. “I don’t know where I am, but Eddy’s got his brakes on and I can’t move him, and my phone’s battery is just about to die on me.” The only clue I could give Su was that I knew we were in a precinct because I could feel a rain trough in the pavement right by me. Su got in the car, and our friend Liz got on her electric scooter, and they both came down looking for us. Su glanced left at one point and spotted us, and came to the rescue! OK, so where was I? Right outside the pet shop! To my right was the fountain, which during the day I would be able to hear and know exactly where I was. but the council in their wisdom turn the fountain off overnight, so that was my most important landmark gone!

Su, Eddy, our friend Liz and I were going to get a train from Teignmouth to Plymouth, but there was quite a bit of time to wait before it was due to arrive. So we decided to go to the outdoor cafe and have a drink. The area where our table was situated was on a slight slope, but we didn’t think much of it. We were quite happily sat there, talking and drinking, when all of a sudden Eddy spotted a dog with its owner walking towards us. Just like the dog in Wetherspoon’s at Tredegar, this dog was not on a leash either. there was no nastiness between the dogs at all, they simply wanted to play. Eddy lunged behind me to greet the other dog, pulling me and my chair over backwards. I can still remember feeling the slow motion effect as the patio chair tipped over backwards, and hearing the back left leg of the chair snapping off. The dog owner, seeing what was happening, dropped his shopping and dived forward like a goalkeeper, catching my head in his hands, preventing it from hitting the pavement!

Another demonstration of Eddy’s braking system happened when I’d gone in to Teignmouth town to get a few odds and ends. I decided that we’d go back to the hotel via the promenade for a change. All was going well until we got on the promenade. To get to the hotel, we needed to turn left, but Eddy was having none of it. Once again, no coaxing, encouragement, or bribery would work, and his brakes were firmly locked on. Members of the public were coming up and asking was everything OK, and I had to explain that he didn’t seem to want to go back to the hotel for some reason. In the end, it was another phone call to Su to ask her to come and rescue me! The following day, Su and I both went to town with Eddy, and she suggested doing the same route, and if he wouldn’t turn left, to let him show us where he wants to go. What a great plan that was! Up to the promenade we went, and once more, Eddy refused to go left. Su was fully expecting him to want to go straight ahead, down a slope and on to the beach. No, he didn’t want to go there either! We allowed Eddy to show us where he wanted to go, and turning right, he started going along the promenade towards the Lifeboat pub! Eddy had made good friends with Pete and Elly, the landlord and landlady of the pub, and unfortunately had got into a bad habit of begging and getting dog biscuits from them! All my gorgeous boy wanted was some love and affection from his friends! Well, and a biscuit or three as well!

As mentioned, my 4th guide dog Max arrived in November 2011. Unfortunately, Eddy did not appreciate his presence at all. Eddy would walk into the room, look at Max, let out a huge sigh, turn around, and walk back off down the hallway to his favourite spot by the front door. this went on for quite a while, until Max was seriously ill. It was at that point that Eddy’s feelings for Max completely changed. He kept coming over to Max to check to see if he was alright. From then on, Eddy and Max built up a good friendship, so much so that they were almost inseparable! It was wonderful to hear them having so much fun together, playing tuggy with their toys and generally having lots of fun. Eddy had found a new lease of life, there was no doubt about that! To top it all off, he even managed to find his bark that had been hidden away for so long!