DEAF DOGS FOR THE BLIND!

I used to live near a large Shopping Centre. In fact Wheat [my guide dog] and I were used to catching the tube there whenever my freezer and I needed re-stocking.

One day while there I realised I needed help as I always did and so duly switched on my beaming smile and waved my card which reads: “Your help welcome”.

A good samaritan answered the call in the form of a well educated sounding woman who I estimated as being taller than I as her voice came from above me. Mind you to be smaller than I would mean you’d probably have to be a seven-year-old child!

“Can I help you my dear”?

She said. In my turn I told her I needed the taxi rank so we could get home. Suddenly her voice came from somewhere near the floor – Right down by the dog’s ear in fact! I was astonished to hear her giving complicated and detailed instructions on how to get there to my Retriever!

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” I cried in true Hollies fashion for those of you who remember the song.

“Have you not heard of deaf dogs for the blind”?

“Oh no! Don’t tell me this poor animal has to work though she’s deaf”!

She said, equally alarmed. I was quick to notice she extended not the same concern for the fact that I have to shop though I’m blind.

“Well yes but it’s a simbiotic relationship we have”,

I said in a calm voice designed to reassure this frantic spectacle of a dog loving passer-by.

“You see each has something the other needs so each compensates for the other’s loss”.

“Oh I see! How marvellous! You so obviously love her and she’s so beautifully cared for”.

I refrained from telling her she lived on a diet of whisky, raw sausages, cigarette ends and tissues and beamed with pride and pleasure at my lovely old dog’s appearance. I wonder what the woman thought as she heard me say:

“Forward”

to my obedient and well trained dog? Was she amazed as the dog moved off with me keeping up the rear? Perhaps she thought she lip read!