LIBERTY LAB

Only someone who has had a guide dog can possibly understand how penned in and imprisoned you feel when you’re between dogs or can no longer have them.

When my lovely old Esme retired I was living in an unsuitable area – Not for dogs but for me. My heels were sore because of flat feet which caused me to have plantar fasciitis which has now gone and I had to wait to move to Surrey before I could even think of having another dog. I moved two years ago this coming May and had to go back to the slow and laborious white cane. My arm ached and my back ached but most of all my heart ached.

When I lost Esme I lost my eyes. I lost a companion and I lost a loyal friend. I pottered about and only went out when I had to. I didn’t want to go out because it’s so hard with a cane and I felt so blind, groping about in the street, bumping into objects and it seemed to take so long to get anywhere.

Then I had the call that I longed for. A GDMI rang me to tell me that there was a dog for me. I was so anxious to go that the three days’ notice I had didn’t faze me though I was a bit stunned. I trained last October with my fourth dog, Rosa. It hasn’t been without its difficulties. As usual the training was very tiring and I do have a back problem.

When I came home I had news of a bigger flat which would better meet both Rosa’s and my needs and I wasn’t given much time to move. As anyone will tell you, guide dog training is exhausting enough but a move on top while undergoing home training after the initial residential stint is very tiring indeed. I left my keys in the fridge, forgot to turn off the cooker ring once and could hardly take in anything my instructor told me. Then I had an accident to my right foot and tore all the ligaments in it so just as poor Rosa was getting used to me and her new home, she had to go again. While she “played away” but not with another dog as she has been spayed, I hobbled around my new flat, still going to the bathroom instead of the kitchen as the flat is like a mirror image of my other one but a little different again as it has a separate bedroom.

In my despairing and tired state, I told my instructor, Emma, that I didn’t want her and would make do with the sighted PA I have. Then, after a visit from my friend and her guide dog which came to me for fuss, I tearfully rang Emma and told her I couldn’t live without Rosa and that I’d not change my mind again and please may I have her back.

On 6th January, having spent Christmas without my dog, Rosa came home and I worked hard to make up for what I missed as a result of hurting my foot.

Now the home training is almost at an end and I have just one more route to qualify on. Today, as on Saturday and a few times beforehand, I went out to get shopping again on my own and yet not on my own. This lovely, gentle two-year-old Labrador, golden and glorious, faithful and dependable, took me unerringly to every shop I needed to go to today. She walked me through the shopping mall I use in Surrey and I know that without her I wouldn’t even bother going to Marks and Spencer.

When I think of how near I was to losing her because I was so desperately tired and in agony with my foot I shudder. I thought I didn’t have enough heart left to share with or give to another guide dog after my lovely old Esme retired but I find it’s true what people say, namely that the more love you give the more you can give. These dogs ask for so little. All they want is a warm bed, regular meals, a bit of fuss and lots of kindness and in return they restore the independence so prized by and valued by us and so taken for granted by those who see.

When I come home, to relieve the tension for us both after the stress of going out in traffic filled streets, I have what I call “waggley fuss”. All this means is that I play with the dog, tickle her and make her wag her tail while saying to her “Wigoty-wag! You’re a good girl aren’t you”, at which point she dashes round the room like a horse at the Epsom Derby and returns with her poor and batter “Flopsy”, a toy made for her by her kind boarder Barbara who looked after her while I moved and when I hurt my foot. I thought today just how much “Wigoty-wag” sounds like “Liberty Lab”. That just about sums it up – Liberty Lab because Rosa has given me back my liberty and freedom just as Emma has for it was Emma who trained us and who has worked hard with me to see me qualify with this lovely dog. A silent army of people, unsung and yet so valuable, from puppy walkers Tessa and Trevor, to Barbara who looked after Rosa to Emma and those others involved in her training, crept up to my door and unlocked the prison bars of blindness so that I may be free – Free again to go out into a world that I have never been able to see. Every penny you put into a box, hour you give to help in whatever way you can and all the time you give to Guide Dogs will do as much and more for someone else who will one day do as I have done and benefit from their very own liberty Lab. It makes going out in the cold and wet, getting covered in mud and waiting for her to “get busy” on a cold winter’s morning so worthwhile. You may be able to stay in with a cane but a guide dog, while giving you no choice but to go out, means that finally and with ease and confidence, you can go out instead.

(the end)