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As a vet you can often get involved in situations where you are expected to work without payment

As a vet you can often get involved in situations where you are expected to work without payment, this can range from rearing fledglings which have been left at the surgery by well meaning clients to being asked to drive twenty or so miles to look at a sick fox in a garden by someone whose own vet is “too busy” at that particular time. This can be frustrating but most of us have a grumble and then get on with it. However one charity we do not mind helping out with is Guide Dogs for the Blind. Since 1958 it has been British Veterinary Association policy to recommend that all vets in the UK give a twice yearly examination, free of charge, to guide dogs belonging to blind people. The vaccine manufacturers donate their vaccines free of charge as well to this worthy cause so the normal yearly booster takes place at one of the examinations as well.

The concept of guide dogs for the blind was conceived during the First World War, a doctor looking after war-wounded in Germany, was called away from a blind man with whom he was walking in the grounds of the hospital. The doctor left his German shepherd with the man and was subsequently so impressed by the dog’s behaviour that he decided to start experiments in training dogs to act as guides for the blind. By 1923 a guide dog training centre had been established at Potsdam which trained several thousand dogs in the next ten years.

Guide dog training first started seriously in Britain in the early 1930,s and the organisation grew from there. At that time most guide dogs were German Shepherds but now the majority of them are Labradors. Over a thousand potential guide dog puppies are born each year to breeding bitches which have been carefully selected for their intelligence and temperament. At six weeks of age they spend a year in the home of a volunteer puppy walker who raises the puppy and teaches it basic obedience, and exposes it to the outside world. After this year they then return to a guide dog centre for intensive training. Once graduated from the centre they are placed with a blind person and their working life begins. Guide dogs work for about seven years and then retire often in the owner’s family. Good homes are always found for retired guide dogs.

This charity is of course well worth supporting not only by us veterinary surgeons but also by you the public, ownership of a guide dog brings freedom and independence, often to an extraordinary degree to those concerned. Gone are the days when the only work of the blind person was basket making or suchlike. Guide dog owners can today be found working in many professions, there are computer programmers, civil servants, clergymen, lecturers, teachers, solicitors, writers, broadcasters, physiotherapists, doctors to name but a few. As we move into the twenty first century electronic devices such as “laser canes” and ultrasonic sonar devices are being developed to give blind people enhanced mobility, amazing as these devices are I think it will be some time before they can match the functionality of a guide dog.