|
The following article
was misplaced in my disaster area called "Inbox E-mail",
but finally surfaced long enough for me to copy it onto a web
page. Written by Jewel Blanch,
who commented that her 'thumbnail portrait' isn't at all brief.
How lucky for us!
I lost my sight in
1945 at the age of seven, when it was diagnosed that I had a cerebral
tumour. The growth, benign I am happy to say, was tucked in behind
the optic nerve, and it was found to be impossible to remove the
tumour without causing irreparable damage to that nerve.
To lose one's sight
is always devastating, but I was fortunate to have had nearly
7 years of sight, for it is well known that a human being learns
more of the world in the first five years of life than he will
in the remaining 70.
Animals, in the guise
of horses, dogs and goats have always figured very prominently
throughout my life.
When I was a pupil
at the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind, and later at
Epsom Girls' Grammar School, my association with representatives
of the animal kingdom had, of necessity, to be on an infrequent
basis.
I was able to go horseback
riding quite often as one of my school mates had a horse, and
would invite me to her home. And, my school holidays were often
spent on a farm, where I remember that on at least one occasion,
I helped out in the cow-shed.
From a very early stage
of my blindness, I had been intensely interested in guide dogs,
and was determined that, come hell or high water, I was going
to have one.
This ambition was fulfilled
in a small way even before I left school when I trained a dog
belonging to the matron of one of the Foundation hostels to take
me up to Mt Hobson.
Now, the time of which
I am writing was the late 50s, and in those far off days, Mt Hobson
was a very isolated spot.
It is a sad commentary
on the deterioration of social standards since then when I say
that the matron in charge of the health and well being of the
pupils was quite willing to give her permission for a 17-year-old
blind girl to spend all day on her own in such an isolated place.
If such permission
was sought these days, it would not be given with such freedom
and confidence. When I was about to leave the Foundation and return
to my parental home in Christchurch, a school mate put me in touch
with a woman who was destined to change my life.
She was not blind,
but was very interested in the concept of dogs as guides for blind
people. Guide dogs had been working in the northern hemisphere
for many years, but they had only just made their first appearance
in Australia, and as yet, there was no thought of them being readily
available to New Zealanders.
It was plain to me
that if I wanted a dog guide, and this was my all-absorbing ambition,
my only avenue was to train one for myself. It was the lady, mentioned
above, who gave me my first dog.
I do not count Peter,
my Mt Hobson companion, as a dog guide as his training was limited
to guiding me safely over a single route.
However, Mitzi [German
Shepherd] was to be trained in all facets of guide work, and this
I did. Since then, I have trained six other dogs to be my guides.
Emma, who is
the subject of one of my stories, was the only school-trained
dog that I have had.
It was in 1960, when
I returned to Christchurch that I got my first goats. When I left
the parental abode, in 1964, I bought a cottage in a seaside suburb
where goats would have been quite de trop, so from then until
the time I moved out to Belfast, at that time, a fairly rural
suburb, goats had to go on the back burner, so to speak.
I have owned them now,
consistently from 1973 to this day. I now live on the outskirts
of Gore, which is about 45 miles north of Invercargill, the most
southerly city in the world.
My spread covers, wait
for it, 3 acres approx, and on that I have my herd of 10 dairy
goats, and the accompanying buck, 1 sheep, 2 hereford cross friesian
bull calves, a yo-yo flock of free range laying chooks [chooks
are what we in New Zealand and Australia call hens, and yo-yo
because the number goes up and down].
Around the house, I
have 11 dogs, consisting of 8 Maltese, which I breed, and 3 guide
dogs, one retired, one who is still my official guide, and a pup
in training, and last but not least, one cat and two cockatiels.
The breeds of the guides are: #1. A German Shepherd cross; #2.
A Newfoundland; #3. a purebred German Shepherd.
If your
appetite has been whetted by these stories, they and others are
to be found in "My Life With Guide Dogs". The book is available
directly from the author, Jewel Blanch on 3.5 inch computer disk
at a cost of 10$US, p&h inclusive. Jewel
Blanch
Text
and images copyright 1998 Jewel
Blanch
|
