Reception and Year 2 had a fabulous day when two wonderful dogs ‘Slipper’ and ‘Draco’ came into School to meet the children and demonstrate their skills as Guide Dogs in training.
Debs, the Guide Dog Mobility Instructor, talked to everyone about the amazing job she does: she trains the dogs in the last 10 weeks of their training and also trains the dogs with their owner.
Debs taught us some very interesting ‘dog facts’: a dog’s hearing is 4 times better than ours and they can recognise the colours blue and green. The guide dogs wear different coloured harnesses, a brown one when they are a ‘guide dog in training’ and a white one when they are a ‘trained guide dog’.
The children were encouraged to think about what it must be like to be visually impaired; they had the opportunity to wear a blindfold and use their other senses such as touch and smell to identify different objects including a lemon, a tin of beans, a penny.
The children also learned it is important not to distract a guide dog when it is working but as today was a special day and the children were allowed to stroke Slipper and Draco.
Debs said that one thing that she really wants everyone to remember is that when we are parking a car, if you have to park on the path, please leave enough room for buggies, wheel chairs and guide dogs to get past on the path. It is very dangerous for visually impaired people and guide dogs to have to go out on the road to pass a park car when they can’t use the path so please, always be considerate.
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