As I neared my home yesterday evening, a man called out from the other side of the road, “Do you have a light, please?”
“No, sorry”, I replied and continued on my way home.

As I walked on, I heard the voice of a young woman, “no, don’t, it’s a blind dog!”
Being registerd blind, I wondered what the point would be of me having a “blind dog”. One hears of the blind leading the blind. However, I, having no desire to become intimately connected with a telegraph pole or other such obstacle will stick with my trusty guide dog, Trigger!

The above occurance is far from being an isolated one. Indeed I have lost count of the number of occasions on which people have refered to my guide dogs (I am now working with my fourth) as “blind dogs”. My heart goes out to all those visually challenged dogs manfully leading their owners to who knows where. A medal should be struck in their honour and, of course the blind who entrust themselves to these fine animals should also be honoured for their … bravery!

To be serious for a moment, the evening was dark and the panic in the young woman’s voice made me conjecture (perhaps in error) that her companion might have been up to no good and, seeing that I was accompanied by a guide dog the lady’s conscience kicked in. As I say, I could be barking up entirely the wrong tree here. I was, nonetheless extremely glad to reach home yesterday evening.