Written back in 2017 by June Bowden
Having had bad times before, I once said that when my husband died, nothing worse could happen but it nearly did because in the last six weeks, I have been forced to think the unthinkable an contemplate the decision to part with my present guide dog, Rosa, at the ridiculously young age of three, having had her for only nineteen months.
Every dog has to have its day
A dog day during which it can carelessly shrug off the duties and constraints that being a guide dog imposes. Until very recently, Rosa has not been deprived of her day out of harness and I’ve had the joy of hearing her galloping over Epsom Downs as if she, too, were entering the Grand National and I’ve had a certain amount of apprehension in case she finds something revolting to roll in which, if there, she will and then come back to me, tail wagging as if she has achieved a superb victory for her “jockey” and “trainer”. It’s easy to imagine her as a horse when you cannot see but can hear those feet thundering over the Downs as I always did. I’d employed a superb PA who helped with the household tasks I can’t undertake and whose duties included free running Rosa and sometimes, bathing her while stoically and metaphorically holding her nose because Rosa got into mischief on the Downs. For eighteen months we were in a superb rhythm and my worries were over until Julie had to tender her resignation because of an impending move.
Then my worries mounted, life began to unravel and I began to lose sleep. Who will help me with Rosa now? While it’s easy to find people willing to pat her, anxious to stroke her, queuing up to compliment her and praise her cleverness and her beauty, it is far from easy to find someone to willingly undertake the revolting task of transporting a dog in their car after it has frolicked in fox poo and dipped it’s face in dog’s muck. Try as I may I could find those willing to do the housework though those who were not self-employed tried telling me how much they wanted for that job and insisting they have cash and telling me when they’d arrive as well so, no, she who pays the piper can’t always call the tune so again, no, I wasn’t having any of that nonsense,everyone drew the line at helping with Rosa so I thought I’d have to call “time” on our partnership and give her back.
I wrote some very anxious emails to my GDMI and told her I could no longer keep the dog. If I couldn’t fulfil my obligations to her as she does to me and couldn’t find anyone else to help me do so then it seemed fairer to part with her. Other problems were also weighing me down, such as the future of the block of flats where I live and it was all getting too much but as ever, Guide Dogs came up with a solution.
Emma suggested that I find a volunteer to help free run Rosa. I held out for some considerable time because logic told me that if someone won’t do the job for payment, nobody is going to willingly undertake to go with a dog who has a penchant for rolling but in the end I got so desperate especially as, when I did find someone to pay, she didn’t rid Rosa of the revolting smell left by her unsavoury activities and we had to get back home before she could have a good run, that eventually I said to Emma that I would give the intrepid and noble lady a try. Apparently she has a puppy that does exactly the same as Rosa so assured me she would bath her if she errs – A polite way of saying: “stinks to high heaven”! Today was a wonderful success. Rosa had a much longer run than she could have with Julie, my valiant volunteer takes her for nothing as she is taking her dogs anyway – I believe she has a nice dignified dog as well whose ways are more ladylike, so this now means that Rosa has two dogs to play with on her day off and I can only hope she doesn’t lead the ladylike dog astray and teach her to become the hairy horror that she becomes when off her lead.
What other charity for the blind is such good value as Guide Dogs?
What other charity hasn’t raised its prices to clients or service users, whatever the jargon is, for years except Guide Dogs, despite the soaring costs of training and service provision? What other charity would not be prepared to say: “Sorry! If you can’t manage to do what is required then you’ll have to lose the benefits of the service”? Maybe it’s because Guide Dogs is a charity involving animals that causes it to be so humane. I was dangling over the edge of the precipice and preparing to return to life before owning a guide dog. I was preparing to fall into depression at the loss of both my PA who was as good as any sighted friend could be and is one now she has ceased to be my PA and preparing also for the extra grief and sense of failure that would come through parting with Rosa and all because I couldn’t find someone to help me free run her. Doubtless I’d have felt relief to begin with at not having to worry about what to do about her. I’d think of the nice winter mornings snuggled up in bed in the warm or in the flat and out of this incessant rain until those thoughts were replaced by sad thoughts of no paws following me to the kitchen and no flopping Labrador at my feet and the utter desolation that can accompany being blind and living alone and without family. Doubtless Emma was thinking of that, too which is why she encouraged me to hang on as she helped me find the means by which I could solve my problem of how to free run Rosa. I would have felt very guilty at the colossal waste of money if I had parted with Rosa out of desperation. Now, the only things I feel are relief that the problem has been solved, a twinge of sadness that I no longer hear the thundering paws of Rosa, plus her companions as they run together on the Downs as there are too many dogs to make it practical for me to go, too but the most wonderful thing I feel is joy at the continuing sense of freedom and independence that I shall be able to have because of Emma’s intervention and the heroin who is prepared to risk the appalling prospect of a Rolling Rosa. Because Guide Dogs goes the extra mile for its clients, so can we when the alternative, if Guide Dogs did not, would be a life stuck in or as a bleak alternative, blundering about with a white cane. Here’s to a problem solved, a happy dog, hairy carpets and the smell of wet Labrador after yet more rain! Anyone want a dog? Yes please! Every time!