Guidelines
- Joe Walker, National Manager GDS
- Relationship building in a local community
- Fishing for a guide dog
- Phil O'Brien and Athol
- Winsome comes 'top of the class'
- Measuring up to the USA
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Joe Walker, National Manager GDS
E Nga Hoa, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
Guide Dog Services relocated from Homai to its own facilities here in Manukau in Tainui tribal land 15 years ago. Since then, the service has gone from strength to strength. The facilities were designed to provide every aspect of the service from breeding to matching, to supplying 40 dogs a year. In the past four years we've been annually supplying 55 dogs, and breeding 70 puppies. The main reasons for this increase are a greater demand for dogs, a much greater variety of dog breeds and the need to replace ageing guide dogs.
Looking ahead, we expect demand to go on increasing. The current facilities can't cope. Overcrowding in the breeding centre and kennels has already led to cases of avoidable dog diseases. We need to create a hospital and recovery area, to expand the kennels and build a new breeding centre. The Foundation's Board has approved the business plan for this expansion, and fundraising for the required $1.65m is being addressed by the Foundation's fundraising team.
Relationship building in a local community
Before joining the Foundation as a guide dog instructor, Julie Hancox had been a sales rep. Seemingly dissimilar on the surface, the two jobs actually have much in common, she says.
"You build up relationships in your area and continue to grow with those people, developing bonds by finding out what they need."
Julie spends 90 per cent of her day out in the community. Her local area is Waikato, where she trains and supports 16-18 blind and vision-impaired people and their guide dogs. Like instructors throughout the country, she is available for whatever issues arise. These can include attacks by stray dogs, stepping in as advocate for a person's legal rights with their guide dog, and arranging short-term boarding for a dog if there are problems at home.
Building long-term relationships with guide dog teams means that instructors get close to the people they work with.
"There's quite a bit of listening involved. If their guide dog has been attacked by another dog, it can leave both the guide dog, and the person quite shaken and it may take some time for confidence to be restored."
Julie's wider task is to build good relationships with agencies in the community such as the Police, the council's dog control units and vet clinics. Having a face to put to the name can, she says, be a great help if an emergency arises.
"Problems get solved more
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quickly because they know and trust me, and those agencies involved become more aware of the needs of our members," she says.
Julie also goes into workplaces with members and their dogs, clarifying for the company the dog's role in that person's life. She talks with family members about how important it is to allow the person who is handling the dog to be its main caregiver so that a good bond can develop. Talks in schools are another way of spreading the word about the value of guide dogs.
Maori are under represented as guide dog users and Julie is building links with the Foundation's whanau worker in Hamilton to find out if there are obstacles that could be removed, to offer more Maori the increased independence that can come from having a guide dog.
Fishing for a guide dog
It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday for a fishing contest at Takapuna beach on Auckland's North Shore. Held on 9 October, the fishing contest was a joint venture between Bayleys Takapuna and Fish City to raise money for the RNZFB's Guide Dog Services.
Guide dog puppies woofed and their human friends cheered as the 295 entrants fished between Cape Rodney, the northern tip of Little Barrier Island and Cape Colville.
After a long hard day's work the fish were weighed and then auctioned by Bayley's chief auctioneer Richard Valintine.
John Algie, of the Commercial Division of Bayleys Takapuna presented the Foundation with a cheque for $22,500. Bayleys raised $18,000 through the entry fees for the competition, personal donations received, auction proceeds and a portion of the takings from the bar and barbeque. The remainder came from previous events.
Mr Algie says, "It was a great day, not just for fishing but also to get together with colleagues, friends and family to support a worthy cause.
"Now all we need to do is find a name for our very own guide dog puppy."
Phil O'Brien and Athol
When Phil O'Brien's eyesight began deteriorating a few years ago he voluntarily gave up driving and had a horse drawn gypsy wagon built instead. He toured around the lower South Island in it, taking in the scenery while he still had a small amount of vision in his right eye. A big sign on the back of the wagon read, "Caution - blind man driving. Remember horses were here long before motor vehicles."
Phil then settled his gypsy wagon and two horses on a friend's farm in Arrowtown. His best mate was
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an old blue heeler dog. He had his dog mated with a pure breed bitch last year and out of that union came Athol, Phil's first guide dog-in-training and the Foundation's first blue heeler.
"He's coming along real well," says Phil. "He's good in shops and the supermarket. Good with kids and old people. He sleeps in the wagon and I can't go anywhere without him."
Athol is now 11 months old. A local trainer is supporting his puppy walking time. Guide Dog Services trainers have worked with around 30 puppies or young dogs whose owners want to train them as guide dogs.
Once a fortnight Phil and Athol take a trip on the TSS Earnslaw across Lake Wakatipu and they go into Arrowtown on the bus, with Athol on his leash and in his official red puppy jacket.
These activities allow him to get used to people and public transport.
He had a tricky time for a while with a narrow local bridge that felt unsafe to cross on foot because of the traffic, but Phil says the locals have now learned to slow down and give their blind neighbour time to get safely across.
The rest of the week, Phil stays on the farm. He takes all of his dogs on walks through the forest and helps out with farming jobs. Phil's loss of sight was brought on by old head injuries from playing rugby league as a young man.
Winsome comes 'top of the class'
Winsome, the star of her own website to educate students about guide dogs, has come 'top of the class'. Having appeared on computer screens in schools around the country for more than a year, Winsome is taking on new reality ventures - she has been selected as guide dog breeding stock.
Only 3 percent of dogs are chosen to be breeding stock for Guide Dog Services and Winsome topped' the list. She has gone home to live with her former puppy walkers Liz & Gerry, who are just delighted to have her back. To be chosen as breeding stock Winsome underwent the full guide dog training programme, where she proved to be an excellent student. Winsome's Web World was designed by students at The Manurewa High School in
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partnership with the RNZFB and Kleenex® Cottonelle. The project team have illustrated the website with a record of her development, video clips of her, e-cards, and the latest 'pupdates'.
Winsome's success in being chosen as breeding stock was acknowledged during the school's prize giving day on Friday 3 December. Follow the link to Winsome's Web World from www.manurewa.school.nz to read about Winsome's progress.
Measuring up to the USA
Keeping up with our offshore cousins in the guide dog world is an important way of improving our services. In October, breeding stock manager Lauren Elgie took advantage of her attendance at a Rhodesian Ridgeback world congress in the USA to visit four guide dog schools. Lauren crisscrossed the USA, taking copious notes about everything from breeding centre design and systems to puppy enrichment and possible stud dogs to import.
"The schools are all run very differently," she says, "And production has a lot to do with it. Some of the schools breed up to 1,000 puppies a year. Because we only breed a tenth of that, our approach is more personal - staff know all our dogs and our volunteers intimately - and I'm proud of that."
Guide dog schools in the USA have begun replicating children's playgrounds for their puppies to have structured play in.
"We use our free run areas for enrichment activities, rather than teaching the dogs tricks or putting them through agility courses," Lauren says, "but I saw some great ideas for puppy enrichment that adds a level to socialising at that younger age."
At some USA schools, puppies are placed into families earlier than in New Zealand, at six rather than seven or eight weeks. At one school puppies went to three different homes early on in puppy walking, which is designed to encourage the puppies to be independent and confident at an early age.
Another important aspect of Lauren's trip was to size up some new breeding stock. "We need to update our frozen semen colony and add complimentary outside lines," says Lauren.
GDS has been using frozen semen predominantly from the UK for a number of years but this semen, she says, needs to be regularly updated, to keep pace with ongoing improvements in the dogs' heritable traits. Guide dog schools are the ideal place to source new stock because of the large amounts of historical data on the lines. All going well, one live stud dog will be imported next year, along with a batch of frozen semen.