by Emma
other students who had arrived in the meantime. Two of them
I got to know very well. There was Dotty (Dorothy, officially),
who was about thirty-four. She had come for her second
guide-dog. And there was Harry, a man of forty-nine who
had been blinded during the war. He had come for his
third guide-dog.
During the afternoon, Brian began to tell us what to expect
in the month ahead. He told us how he trained the dogs, and
how we would be trained to use them. With two people
present who had already had guide-dogs, I felt a very raw
recruit, and slightly uneasy. But I need not have. Brian
explained that even for people who had had a guide-dog
before, it was necessary to come back to the centre, and
re-train with their new dog. Techniques of handling were
constantly being improved, and a dog had to have a month
with its new owner to transfer its allegiance and affection
away from the trainer.
In the evening, Dotty and Harry told me about their
previous dogs, and it was exciting to hear them. But when the
time came to go to bed, and I went upstairs to my room, I
felt very lonely. In the room next to mine, I heard Dorothy's
radio and decided to knock on her door.
'It's Sheila, may I come in?'
'Of course, the chair's behind the door. Sit down.'
I sat down and tried to make conversation, but Dotty didn't
seem very communicative. In fact, she sounded rather upset.
'Would you rather I went?'
'Oh no, please don't.'
So I tried to cheer her up. 'Aren't you looking forward to
getting your new dog? I can't wait to get mine.' At this, to
my amazement, she burst into tears. 'Oh dear,' I said,
'whatever's the matter? What have I said?'
'It's all right,' she sobbed, 'I shall be all right. But I don't
want another dog.'
I was utterly at a loss. 'Don't want another dog? I don't
understand.'
'Well,' she said, 'you'd understand if you'd left a dog
behind.' And it emerged that Paddy, her old dog, had had to
be retired early because of illness, and had gone to friends
near Dotty's home. 'It's so awful,' she went on, 'to have left
Paddy behind, and to come for another dog. I feel I've
betrayed her.'
I tried to console her. 'But if Paddy couldn't go on working,
I'm sure she'll be glad to see another dog in her place . .
'I don't know...'
'But surely, for your own sake you must try to transfer your
affection.'
'Yes. I know you're right. But it's easier said than done. At
the moment I just don't feel able to love another dog.'
There was nothing more I could do to help. I said 'Goodnight'
in as kindly a way as I could.
Next morning, all the gloom was swept away. At about
half-past seven I was woken by a great chorus, not far away,
of barking dogs. It was the sweetest music I had heard for
years. Which one, I wondered lying there half-awake, is
going to be mine? Which bark is hers? I hurried through
breakfast. I wanted to get down to the instruction as soon as
possible. When we had all assembled in the lounge, we were
each issued with a white harness for our dogs, and, so we would
get the hang of using it, there was a life-size plastic model of a
guide-dog. We called him Fred.
'Your dogs,' Brian began, 'are used to working with
experienced sighted trainers. They won't take kindly to you
blundering round them like blind people, trying to find out
where to put the harness on. This is where Fred comes in.
You can practise on him first.'
After we had all, in turn, found the correct end of Fred,
Brian continued to instruct us on how to position ourselves
by the dog: the dog always being on the left. 'These exercises ' '
Brian went on, 'may seem trivial. But you will be getting a
fully trained dog. The least you can do is to try to give the
impression that you are a fully trained owner.'
Positioned at Fred's side, I was told how to instruct him.
'Let's pretend you are telling your dog to go forward. Always
indicate with your right arm which direction you want. This
will help the dog.' My first effort was unbelievably feeble.
Brian started laughing. 'Well, if you were going to start off
in the direction you were pointing you'd be leaping over your
dog's head. Now have another go. No. Don't stand behind
him, you'll step on his tail.' And so on. It was as well we had
Fred to practise on. At least his plastic tail was not sensitive
to my foot.
Our next lesson was to learn how to follow the dog. Brian
played the part of the dog, because Fred had not yet been
fixed up with wheels. With dummy harness, and Brian in the
lead, we set out in the grounds of the training centre. It was
very difficult to follow, and to stop and go when he did.
I was sure I had two left feet, and by the end of the first day's
training I was convinced I would never make a guide-dog
owner. But I was determined to improve and already the feel
of the harness had come to be important to me.
In the lounge after breakfast the following day there was
tremendous expectancy and excitement because we all knew
we were going to meet our dogs for the first time. Brian gave
us a final briefing, and then asked us to go back to our rooms.
'There'll be less distraction there,' he said, 'and you'll get to
know your dog, and vice versa, with a bit of peace and quiet.'
I went up to Number Ten-able to find my way now
unaided. I sat on the edge of the bed waiting, with the door
open, and with enough time to have a stray, disturbing
thought: what if my dog doesn't like me? What if she stands
growling at me? Then I heard Brian's footsteps approaching
along the corridor, and with them I heard the clicking patter
of a dog's paws.
'Here we are, Sheila,' said Brian as he came into the room,
'here's your dog. She's called Emma, and she's a chocolatecoloured
Labrador.'
At the same time I heard a tail swishing the air, and Brian
leaving, closing the door behind him. 'Emma,' I called.
Immediately she came bounding across the room, and suddenly
I was nearly bowled off the bed. Then I was licked all
over. 'Hello, Emma,' I said, 'hello.' I could hardly believe
it. She kept licking me, and pushing her cold nose into my
hands. I knew then we were going to get on together. She
likes me, I thought. She likes me. I could have danced round
the room.
I tried to feel the shape of her head, but she would not stop
bouncing up and down in front of me, twisting, turning and
making snuffling noises in my hands. Every now and then I
got a wet nose in my face. But at last she settled and sat by
my feet, and I was able to feel what she was like. Her coat was
very thick and rough, reminding me of a Teddy bear's. She
was smallish for a Labrador, not fat, but thickset. She had a
very thick tail, and ears that were as soft as velvet. And sh
e
was so lively.
Emma did not give me long to run my hands over her. She
started to fetch me things. Under the dressing table I kept my
shoes. She began rushing after them, and bringing them to
me one by one. The message was quite clear. 'Here I am. I'm
Emma. I'm your new dog, and this is your gift, a shoe.' I
could not remember ever being so happy before. And from
those first few moments of greeting, Emma's affection has
never wavered. From then on she was never to leave my side,
and I, in turn, took on the responsibility for her every need.
CHAPTER THREE
TRAINING
MY FIRST WALK with Emma came that afternoon, and it
was immediately evident why we had to have a month's
training with the dogs. Although Emma took to me, and we
got on well together, she would not do a thing I told her. She
would obey no one but Brian. Attachment and obedience to
me would clearly come only with training.
I put Emma's harness on, and we started off down a quiet
road near the centre. Brian was standing next to us. He gave
the command to go forward, but before he even got the
-ward' bit out we were off, several miles down the road it
seemed, and I was galloping along, hanging on grimly to the
harness.
'I'll never keep this up,' I managed to gasp.
'Oh, you'll soon get used to it,' said Brian. 'You'll get
fitter as you go along. The trouble is you've been accustomed
to walking so slowly.'
A guide-dog's pace apparently averages about four miles
an hour. This compares with an ordinary sighted person's
two to three miles an hour. So what kind of speed I used to
achieve before, I have no idea, but it was obviously not
competitive even with that of the snail population. At last I
began to settle down to the fast rhythm, and wasjust beginning
to think I might enjoy it after all, when, without any warning
whatsoever, Emma stopped. I was off the pavement before I
could pull up. Emma had sat down on the kerb, and I heard
Brian laughing.
'Don't go without your dog, that's Lesson Number One,'
Brian said. 'If you go sailing on when she stops at the kerb,
you'll get run over. She stops, you stop.'
'Well, I didn't know she was going to stop, did I? And you
didn't tell me.'
'No, you're right. But you've got to learn to follow your
dog.'
Brian was about twenty-eight at the time, very pleasant
and with a great sense of humour. I imagined him goodlooking
with fair hair and glasses. I liked him especially
because he refused to make concessions to our blindness. He
expected us to be independent. Rather than mop us up, and
say, 'There, there,' when we fell off the kerb, he would turn
it into a joke, which was the best medicine. At least it was for
me. It certainly made me get up and think, 'Right. I'll show
you who can be a good guide-dog owner.'
So on this occasion I got back behind Emma, took up the
harness again, and said, 'What next?'
'You've got to cross this road. First you listen for any
traffic. If it's quiet, you give Emma the command to go
forward.'
When I could hear no traffic, this is what I did. But nothing
happened.
Brian said, 'She knows that you're behind her and not me.
You've got to encourage her, to make her want to take you
over the road.'
'Good girl, Emma,' I said, 'there's a clever dog.' And after
a little more of this persuasion, and the word 'Forward',
thrown in from time to time, she finally took me across the
road.
Crossing the road with a guide-dog is a matter of teamwork:
whatever you do, you do it together. I have met sighted
people with such weird ideas about this. Either they think the
dogs are not very clever, but just wear the harness to show
their owner is blind-a sort of plea for help-or they think the
dogs are superhuman, and the blind people idiots who are
being taken round for a walk rather as other people take their
dogs. The importance of partnership, or even its existence,
never seems to occur to most people. My job when crossing
a road was to listen and Emma's was to look. Only when I
could hear nothing should I give her the command to cross.
But if I was wrong in my assessment of the traffic, and she
could see something coming, she would wait until it was clear.
Guide-dogs are taught to stop and sit down at every kerb
and wait for the next command. The four basic commands are,
'Right', 'Left', 'Back', and 'Forward'. And you have to
position yourself with your dog so that you give her every
opportunity to obey the right command. For instance, when
the command to go forward is given, it is accompanied by an
indication in that direction with the arm. It is also important
to keep talking to the dog, and Brian reminded me of this on
our first walk, just after we had crossed the road.
'Don't stop talking, or Emma'll think you've fallen asleep.'
'What do I say?' I asked rather stupidly.
'It doesn't matter, as long as you make it interesting. Tell
her what you had for breakfast if you like.'
So there I was, galloping along a street in Leamington
discussing bacon and eggs with a chocolate-coloured Labrador.
Brian went on, 'You're working together, and if you stop
talking, she'll stop working. You've got to keep her interest.
She's a dog, and there are lots of nice, interesting smells all
round, and things passing that you can't see. So unless you
talk to her, she'll get distracted, and stop to sniff a lamp post.'
I was quite hoarse by the time we had finished our first walk
together.
I owe a great deal to Brian, not only for his training, but
also for matching Emma and me together. His assessment of
all he knew about us resulted in an inspired pairing, as time
was to prove.
One day I remember asking him where Emma came from.
What I really meant was, how did the centres come by the
guide-dogs? Brian explained that they came to Leamington,
or one of the other centres, after being puppy-walked. The
Guide-Dog Association has a big breeding and puppy-walking
centre at Tollgate House, near Warwick. They own a number
of brood bitches and stud dogs that are let out to people as
pets, because, naturally, a permanent kennel life is not
desirable, and living with a family is a much happier arrangement.
At the same time the Association controls which dog
should mate with which. When the litters come along, it
picks the dogs or bitches required for training. At about eight
weeks old, a puppy undergoes various tests to see if it is
basically bold and friendly, and capable of being trained as a
guide-dog. Dogs bred in this way form about sixty per cent of
the total, and there are now about two thousand guide-dog
owners in the country. The remaining forty per cent come to
the Association either by purchase or donation from breede
rs
or private individuals. But the rejection rate is high. Dogs are
kept on approval for about three weeks to see if they are
suitable. If they're not, they're returned to their owners. In all
cases the dogs chosen are usually female, because the male
dog has a rather different outlook and nature, including a
territorial instinct, and is not as tractable as the female, who
in any case is spayed for the purposes of being a guide-dog.
About seventy per cent of the breeds used are Labradors, like
Emma-though I prefer to think she is unique, even among
Labradors-and the remainder Alsatians, Collies, Golden
Retrievers, and crosses from all of these.
Once the selection is made, the puppies go to people called
puppy-walkers, who live around the training centres, and give
homes to potential guide-dogs for about a year. In this time
they have to teach the dog the basics. The dogs learn how
to be well-mannered and clean in the house, to keep off
furniture, not to beg for food, and to obey commands such as
'Sit', 'Stay', 'Down', 'Come', and so on. They are taught to
walk on a lead, but not at heel, because of course they will
eventually be required to walk in front of a blind man or
woman. In general, the puppy-walkers are expected to take
the dog everywhere with them, so that the dog is not shy of
traffic, buses or trains, or the sort of sudden noises that sometimes
occur in the street, such as pneumatic drills. They are
also specifically instructed to take the dogs shopping. During
this phase the puppy grows up and becomes used to urban
life, and at the same time should remain bold and friendly.
At this point, Brian told me, they come to the centres for
guiding training, which lasts about five months. The puppywalkers
do a wonderful job. I couldn't do it myself: have a
dog for a year, then part with it; then have another, and see
it go, and so on, and I really admire those who do so much to
forge the first essential link between dog and blind person.
Naturally, when Brian told me all this, I wanted to know
who had puppy-walked Emma, and he said, 'Someone called
Paddy Wansborough. She's a marvellous woman. She's given
nine or ten dogs to the Association after puppy-walking them.
In fact, Emma wasn't bred by the Association. She was bought
by Paddy as a puppy, given her basic year, and then donated