Guide Dogs charity ‘five months behind’ in training dogs for people with sight problems
Watch Ben McGrail's report
"It felt like somebody had pulled the rug out."
Those of the words of Helen McCann, whose guide dog Alfie had to be suddenly retired.
Helen has a degenerative eye condition and is registered blind. Coincidentally, Alfie was diagnosed with a similar condition and had to stop his role supporting her on the spot.
“One day he was working and the next he wasn’t,” she said. Unfortunately for Helen, the retirement coincided with the coronavirus pandemic, which meant the Guide Dogs charity had to stop all training for months.
Helen says it’s had a big impact on her life: “It’s quite frustrating because, by nature, I’m an independent person but I can’t even walk to the village shop.
“It’s not safe for me to leave the house because you never know what obstacles are going to be there. Somebody could have dug a hole, put some street furniture.
“I can’t post a letter, I can’t go out and just meet friends even at a social distance and those friends can’t pick me up in a car.”
Helen is one of many people who are waiting for a guide dog. The Guide Dogs charity says it is battling to catch up.
Regional Head of Operations for the south west Annie Wilson said: “We've always had a very high demand for the guide dogs service and when we took on the first government restrictions, back at the end of March, it did mean that we shut down all of our breeding, our dog training and our client training.
“We managed to get some of their most of that back up and running in August but we were down for about five months in all those areas and they each have a knock on effect.
"We are working as hard as we can but it makes everything a little bit longer to get the dogs through the certain tasks to be able to perform, as well as working with clients to actually train them with the dogs.
“There's a lot that does require quite hands-on work, so we're trying right now to work very much in Covid-secure ways, but unfortunately it is making every task that we do take a little bit longer.”
The charity has been using video calling and technology to train clients and Covid-safe ways and is hoping that it can catch up with the demand.
“The Guide Dog service has always had huge demand,” said Annie Wilson. “Every year we are investing in our frontline staff so we have guide dog trainers and guide dog mobility instructors being recruited so we can increase our numbers and meet the demand.”
Helen, meanwhile, hopes she can inspire other people with sight loss who are waiting for guide dogs. She has raised tens of thousands of pounds for the charity and is currently training for her second triathlon.
Helen refuses to be held back by not having a guide dog at the moment. She said taking on physical challenges like marathon runs and triathlons is ‘liberating’: ”It wasn’t something I always did - it was something I started doing as a means to fundraise for guide dogs, it was just something new instead of all the things that I’ve been doing in the past like the usual coffee mornings, or events, or standing with a bucket.
“The whole experience of coming out of my comfort zone really has given me a confidence I never had before.”
Read more: