Regular listeners will have heard Alice talking about how often people think she is training her gude dog, and this week’s guest Emily said she gets asked the same question herself. So we though it might be nice to hear from some people who actually do train guide dogs!
We spoke to four wonderful individuals from up and down the UK, who have been Puppy Raisers for Guide Dogs for as many as 10 years and, between them, have raised more than 20 dogs.
Over the years these Puppy Raisers have had Golden Retrievers, pure Labradors and Retriever/Lab crosses and say that the Labradors are easier to train because they’re much more food orientated whereas the Golden Retrievers are more stubborn! They’ve had a mix of male and female pups and said their abilities and aptitude is related more to their personality than their gender.
The puppies come to these Puppy Raisers as soon as they are old enough to leave their mothers, at about seven weeks, and stay with their puppy raising family for about 14 months. During this time Puppy Raisers get the dogs house trained, socialized and teach them, what one PR described as “good manners”, all in preparation for them to go back to the Guide Dogs Assocation to work with a trainer to learn the commands and techniques for guiding their blind owners.
We asked these Puppy Raisers why they got involved with Guide Dogs and many of them said it was because they already supported the charity with regular donations or knew other Puppy Raisers, several said they saw adverts and calls for Puppy Raisers in their area just as there was a change in their personal circumstances – being made redundant or losing a pet dog – and felt that becoming a Puppy Raiser would give them a purpose. Whilst others said they decided to start Puppy Raising after a member of their family lost their sight.
When asked how they would describe being a Puppy Raiser some talked about the level of responsibility and time, calling it a “long journey”, “hard work” and “24/7”. All of them talked about how much they loved caring for the dogs and how they felt like they were making a difference.
Over the years, these Puppy Raisers have helped 9 pups to become qualified guide dogs and spoke about how much they loved hearing from the blind owners of their capable puppies. Of the dogs that didn’t become fully qualified guides, two became Buddy Dogs for people with other disabilities, and one became a therapy dog for people in hospitals and hospice care. Of those who had to be withdrawn completely, two went back to the Puppy Raisers to become pets, whilst others were placed with members of the public or Guide Dogs Association members of staff. The two main reasons why puppies had to be withdrawn were either anxiety around other dogs, with one Puppy Raiser revealing that the dog had been attacked by another dog during further training, or because of health problems, with one sad story of a puppy’s sudden passion away at only 11 months old after getting an infection.
All the Puppy Raisers talked about how individual each puppy is, they had stories about the mischief that the little pups get up to on their way to being life-changers; one person told us about a pup who pinched a toy reindeer from a Christmas display in a department store and another told the story of a dog that loved swimming and had to be carried out of the sea at their first trip to the beach because they were having too much fun!
When we asked Puppy Raisers what is the hardest thing about their role we expected most of them to say it’s giving the puppy back to Guide Dogs when it’s time for them to progress to further training. To our surprise many of their responses were in fact similar to the stories that we’ve heard Alice tell over the years; stories about being refused entry to places because of the dog, people constantly talking to, touching and distracting the dogs and the general public attitude towards people with guide dogs. Raisers talked about being turned away by rude and aggressive supermarket security guards and the constant need to remind people, even friends and family, not to feed the dogs human food.
That’s not to say that letting go a of a puppy is easy, all the Puppy Raisers we spoke to agreed that it is very difficult but, as one Raiser who is now on puppy number 6 said, “it’s inevitable. If you can’t do it you can’t be a Puppy Raiser”. Several of them also said that it can sometimes only be days before the next adorable little pup is placed with them, meaning you don’t get much time to miss the previous dog before you’re right back into constant chewing, indoor peeing and all the other perils of puppy-hood!
But the big take away from our interviews was about how incredible the dogs are and how proud the Puppy Raisers are to contribute to making future Guide Dogs. The longest serving Raiser we spoke to, who has been Puppy Raising for ten years and is now on puppy number 9, described how the puppies reach a certain age and seem to want more than they currently have and do with their puppy raising families; that they are ready for the challenge, work and reward of becoming a Guide Dog and that as a Puppy Raiser that’s when you realise you’ve done your job right and it’s time for them to move on.
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