Tales of a future Guide Dog

07/01/2009 by Arielle.

A lovely elderly couple visited today with Roxy. She is a 7 month old black Lab who will one day become a Guide Dog. They very kindly foster her until she is ready for training but are involved in starting her training and socialising her. She is such a friendly, gorgeous puppy.

She had suffered from a minor vaginal infection recently. They brought her in today as she was bleeding and they were very concerned. I explained that it was all normal - she had started her first season! Guide dogs are only neutered a few months after having their first season.

They had a good laugh at their worry and explained that they had only ever fostered male puppies before. They went on to tell me about one puppy in particular called Humphrey. Being a Labrador, he was very food-orientated. They remember training him in Marks and Spencer one day (dogs are not normally allowed in supermarkets). He managed to grab a sandwich and before they could do anything, he had ripped it out of its plastic covering and devoured it! He also had one incident where he spotted a mince pie on a plate. He leapt over the sofa and in one swoop, he had grabbed the mince pie off the plate and swallowed it. We all had a good laugh about this and apparently he has gone on to make an excellent Guide Dog even with his shaky start into the world of the seeing dog!

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