Meet My Guide Dogs

Hi, my name is Jon Nixey, and on this website I would like to introduce you to the three guide dogs I have had the greatest of pleasure working with, Troy, Isaac, and Eddy. To read about them and view a selection of photographs, please select their name from the links on the right.

I first applied for a guide dog and was assessed in 1985, when the South Wales area was under the care of the Guide Dogs training centre at Exeter. By the time I had been invited to go on class in 1986, I felt that the house my wife and I had bought would not be suitable for a guide dog as there was no garden, and so I withdrew my application. Over the years though, I have met and heard of a number of people who have successfully coped with having a guide dog while living in a house with little or no garden. After a mishap in 1988 when my face met a lorry that was overhanging the pavement, my wife decided that was a good time to re-apply! by this time, we had moved home, and we both felt that this house had an ideal sized garden.

We contacted the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association again, and I was asked to attend another assessment to determine if I was suited to work with a guide dog. During that assessment, I was able to have a trial walk with a dog in training, and what an experience that was! His name was Herby, and he was nearing the end of his advanced training. The trainer decided that I was a suitable candidate, and, me being me, I began to convince myself that they wouldn't let me walk with a dog that wasn't suited to me, so, Herby must be the one they are thinking of giving me, right?? Wrong!!

in June 1989, I spent three weeks training with Troy, a Golden Retriever cross Yellow Labrador, at Trevillian House in Cathedral Road, Cardiff, the training centre of Guide Dogs for the Blind for South and Mid Wales. From that moment on, my mobility was to change for the better, and not just a little, but dramatically.

If you would like an official Guide Dog Owner speaker to visit your club, group, institute, organisation or school to give a talk about the training and work of Guide Dogs, please get in touch with Guide Dogs near you.

Do you have an old mobile phone lurking in a cupboard? Or, what about used inkjet cartridges? These are just two items you can recycle for Guide Dogs to help raise vital funds.

Information is available here if you would like to find out about the various ways you can make a donation to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

Why not visit the Guide Dogs for the Blind's 75th Anniversary Micro-site.