I’M SURE BY now you’ve picked up that I think the world of my working sheepdogs. But I’m prepared to admit that they are not, in all cases, the right breed for every job, and that there are other dogs whose abilities in their own fields are up there with those of an elite trialling collie.
These are dogs who have been trained to help human beings in remarkable ways: assistance dogs. It blows my mind when I hear about dogs that have turned the lives around of so many people. Anyone who owns a pet dog knows the therapy value of having a wet-nosed, waggy-tailed mutt gazing up with eyes brimming with love. It is a statistical fact that people who have dogs are four times as likely to recover from cardiovascular disease, and dog owners have significantly smaller increases in heart rate and blood pressure in response to stress. Couples with dogs are less likely to split and divorce than non-dog owners. But these are just normal dogs, pet pooches with no special training, nothing but instinctive devotion and love for their owners. Imagine the impact if this instinct is harnessed to specific training?
Guide Dogs UK was the first dog-training charity I, and most people, became aware of, as we occasionally saw a steady, unruffled Labrador or retriever guiding a person with little or no sight through crowded streets, negotiating round all sorts of obstacles, patient and never distracted, even by other dogs. Today there are many more assistance dogs for a whole range of disabilities.
The first guide dogs were trained in Germany immediately after the First World War, to help ex-servicemen blinded in the trenches. It was not until 1930 that Britain began training its own dogs, a year after the idea took hold in America. And it was a lot longer before the idea of assistance dogs expanded to cover other disabilities. Now there are over 7,000 people in the UK who have a specially trained dog to help them with their disabilities, including deafness, epilepsy, diabetes, autism, stress, including post-traumatic stress, Addison’s disease and life-threatening allergies. I’ve been privileged enough to see assistance dogs in action, and watching a dog work demonstrates their value much more effectively than any statistics.
From time to time, I am invited to give talks to different organisations, sometimes about my farming life, sometimes more specifically about my relationship with my working dogs. One such invitation came from the Vets4Pets organisation, which represents many vet practices across the country.
I gave my talk to a full house and was pleased with the reception I received. But I’m more than happy to admit that my contribution was completely eclipsed by that of the man who spoke after me. Everyone in the hall was bowled over by his story, and as I looked out from the stage I saw lots of tissues wiping away tears. I was not ashamed to have to dab at my own eyes, as his story was so moving. All the time he talked, a gentle yellow Labrador lay at his feet.
Allen Parton was badly injured in an explosion on board a ship in the first Gulf War in 1991, where he was serving as a naval officer. He had a catastrophic head injury, which paralysed him from the waist downwards: he could no longer read or write or talk, and, perhaps most important, he was unable to remember anything that happened before the explosion. He did not recognise his wife, Sandra, and had no knowledge of his two children. It was devastating for him and equally so for his family. When his children, Liam and Zoe, who were six and four at the time, visited him in hospital he did not know them, had no interest in them, and was trapped in an angry and despairing mood.
Despite five years in hospital and a long period of rehabilitation, during which he made two major attempts at suicide, Allen’s condition showed no sign of improving, and his wife Sandra was, he says, a saint for looking after him. When he was in the rehab hospital one of the staff told Sandra that he would never speak again and suggested she should divorce him and get on with her own life without him, but she refused.
Eventually, Allen was living at home but going to a day centre for rehab, but there was little progress and the children became used to tiptoeing around his irritable temper.
Unable to work because of her full-time caring duties, but with the children in school and Allen at daycare, the house was calmer and Sandra decided to volunteer as a puppy walker for the charity Canine Partners, which pairs dogs with disabled people to help them perform everyday functions. Once a week she had to attend the local centre with the puppy she was helping to train.
‘One day the bus that was taking me to daycare didn’t turn up,’ said Allen. ‘Sandra was understandably annoyed that she was going to miss her puppy class, so she bundled me into the back of the car and took me with her. I was left in my wheelchair, completely unresponsive, at one end of the hall while the puppy walkers went about their training.
‘At the other end of the hall was a yellow Labrador that had been returned to the centre for a career change – he wasn’t working out as an assistance dog because he had a bit of an attitude problem. If he was asked to pick something up he’d give a look, as if as to say, “Why don’t you do it yourself?” He was going to be socialised and rehomed as a pet.
‘While I was slumped in my wheelchair, immersed in my own miserable world, the dog, Endal, picked up a toy and brought it to me, dropping it in my lap. He expected praise or a reward, but he got no reaction from me. It clearly hacked him off, so he went to the mocked-up supermarket (where the puppies are taught to help their disabled owners to shop) and he took a tin of beans off a shelf and dropped it into my lap. Still nothing. He brought more toys, more shopping. I did not respond, I did not know how to respond. This was a challenge to him.
‘Eventually, as I and my wheelchair slowly disappeared under a mountain of things that the dog brought, I smiled. It was the first human reaction, apart from anger, that had crossed my face since the injury. Somehow, Endal had seen and unlocked in me something that no amount of rehab had managed.
‘He came home with me that day and he stayed with me for the next 14 years, completely transforming my life and the life of my family. He broke my miserable, unhappy world apart with his waggy tail.’
Allen explained that Endal had no advanced training, but that he instinctively knew how to handle Allen’s problems, eventually learning more than 900 different commands – far more than any sheepdog needs, even the best trialling dogs. He learnt to put Allen in the recovery position and cover him with a blanket if he collapsed. Endal would bark for a neighbour to help, and if nobody came he would go and find someone. If Allen became unconscious in the bath Endal would leap in and release the plug. For the first time since Allen came home from hospital, Sandra could go out and leave her husband, knowing he was in good paws.
It was after Allen involuntarily burped, which seemed to excite Endal, that Allen stuttered his first words.
‘Endal did what five years of speech therapy had not achieved,’ said Allen, who today talks fluently.
But much more than any physical help he gave, he ‘found’ the old Allen, the good-natured man who Sandra and the children knew before the injury.
‘Before Endal came I was on a perpetual short fuse, angry with the children if they disturbed me, or if they smeared chocolate on my trousers. But Endal released the goofy, funny side of my personality. He once dragged a rhododendron bush into the house that had only been planted the day before, and I just laughed. I’d have gone ballistic before he came.
‘One by one, he brought back my emotions. I learnt to hate, because I began to hate people who were cruel to animals. And I learnt to love again, not just him but my family. I had no memory of marrying Sandra, and it was important to me to do it again. Endal was my best man.’
Allen and Sandra could have had their marriage blessed in church, but Allen insisted he did not want a blessing on something he could not remember. It took an effort to get permission to marry again, with a complete ceremony, but they achieved it.
But the story that brought sobs from the audience was what happened one night, after Endal and Allen had been giving a demonstration at Crufts to raise awareness of the charity Canine Partners. They were staying at a hotel and Allen took Endal out to the car park for a final chance to relieve himself before bed, when they were both knocked down by a hit and run driver, and left unconscious.
‘I know what he did because it was all recorded on CCTV,’ said Allen. ‘But I was unconscious throughout, so I wasn’t aware of it at the time. When Endal came round he was clearly dazed, but after a few seconds he pulled me into the recovery position, and then fetched a blanket from the back of my wheelchair to cover me. Then he crawled under a car to retrieve my phone, and tried to rouse me. When he got no response he went to the hotel and raised the alarm, barking and leading people to me.’
Endal was voted Dog of the Millennium by the PDSA, and given the Dickin medal, commonly called the animal’s VC, and normally awarded for valour in wartime. ‘He qualified because my injuries were sustained in war,’ said Allen.
One day, when Allen was struggling at a cashpoint machine, Endal jumped up, took the card, the money and the receipt and handed them to Allen. This became part of their normal routine. One day, a newspaper photographer was behind them in the queue and asked for permission to snap Endal doing it, and he featured in a national newspaper, becoming a star. He was used to launch chip and pin machines when they were introduced, taking all the fuss and flashing cameras in his stride. He was the first dog on the London Eye and the first dog to be invited into the cabin of a commercial aircraft. He even picked up a Gold Blue Peter badge.
For Allen, a wonderful moment came when his children, who are now grown up, invited him to speak at their school.
‘I think until I got Endal I was an embarrassment, a father whose speech and behaviour were not normal. But Endal was the catalyst, he made them proud of me.’
Eventually, when he was nearly 15 years old and very arthritic, Endal had a fit and lost his balance. Allen phoned the vet who said he would come the following day. That night Allen stayed downstairs with the dog who had changed his life.
‘I was cuddling him, telling him how grateful I was for the incredible journey he had taken me on. He had given me back my wife, my children, my life. When I left him asleep on the sofa you could almost see him thinking, “Thank goodness, now I can get some sleep …” The vet came in the morning, and I held Endal on my lap while he died, peacefully. He had given me so much, and in his death he gave me another enormous gift. I cried like a baby, and it was the first time I had been able to cry since my injury: another emotion he had released in me.
‘My life was like a jigsaw puzzle that was smashed to pieces in the Gulf War, and every day Endal patiently found a bit of the missing puzzle and put it back. I still can’t walk, I still have problems, I still have days when I feel miserable, but everything positive that I have, I owe to that remarkable dog.’
When Endal died there was a young, 11-month-old puppy called EJ in the house, starting his training as an assistance dog. He had come to live with Allen when he was eight weeks old, and had learned from Endal to pick up his bowl, and all the other help that Allen needs on a regular basis.
‘That day, the day of Endal’s death, EJ picked up Endal’s collar and his assistance dog jacket and he brought them to me. He knew it was his turn. And he has become a great addition to our family. He can do everything that Endal did, even using an Oyster card on the London underground.’
It was while thinking about the amazing second chance he got with EJ, a dog who took over from Endal so smoothly, that Allen came up with the idea for a charity to provide dogs just for injured servicemen, and that’s how the charity Hounds for Heroes came into existence.
‘I looked back at what a miserable, unresponsive lump I was. I didn’t want to sit back and think “I’m alright, Jack”. I realised how much I had been given by these two dogs, and how incredibly lucky I was to have a second dog of such quality. What made me special? There are 9,000 injured servicemen and women in the UK today. And I know from my own experience that not all the injuries are the ones you can see: there are physically fit men and women who are crippled with post-traumatic stress disorder, and for them a dog is just as much a lifeline as it is for those of us who struggle with a cashpoint machine.’
Allen’s charity now has more than ten dogs out in the community, helping ex-servicemen, and there are more dogs being trained.
‘Although I’m a Lab man myself, we also train golden retrievers because they are more sensitive. Labs career in with great enthusiasm and gusto, which is what I needed from Endal, but it’s not always the right approach. There are men and women who have been injured so badly that there is not enough skin to stitch up the holes in their bodies, and they need very, very gentle dogs.
‘One chap, a double amputee, came to our HQ with his mother and grandmother, who had persuaded him to come. He didn’t want to be there and he said, “I don’t want a dog near me”. One of our best dogs, Rookie, who can put keys and pens into someone’s mouth, can operate pedestrian lights, and knows 938 commands even from an electronic voice, quietly went up behind him and put his head on the guy’s lap without him realising it, while he was still protesting about dogs hurting him. He changed his mind.’
Allen was a vice chairman of Canine Partners for 15 years, and Sandra worked there for 20 years.
‘We are not in competition with them or any other charity. We just feel we give servicemen something they can relate to. We use military language: the puppies are “cadets”, and they have names like Juno, Monty, Colonel, Flanders. We joke and banter in the way that service people are used to: there’s plenty of black humour.
‘We get a lot of support from the armed forces, and from people connected with them. It was very touching when a widow sold her husband’s Second World War medals and his gold watch chain and gave us the proceeds.’
EJ has raised more than two-and-a-half million pounds for the charity, happy to appear in endless photoshoots, as well as taking care of Allen every day. The charity fully funds the costs of the dogs, never wanting a dog to be a luxury some injured serviceman cannot afford. By paying for food and vet’s bills, they know the dogs are being well cared for. They get sponsorship from Petplan, the animal insurance company, and they get free medical supplies and food donated to them. The hotels where they hold conferences and training events have all given them the use of rooms free.
‘I’m gobsmacked by how kind people are to us,’ said Allen.
The charity places dogs with injured firemen, policemen, paramedics, and prison officers. ‘We don’t think the word “hero” exclusively applies to the military.’
Like I said, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Allen told his story. He finished his talk by telling us: ‘Endal picked me up from an abyss of despair, and took me to where I am now: confident, able to talk to anyone. I wouldn’t be here talking to you if it wasn’t for the love of a dog.’
I was so moved by what I heard, that when I got home I nominated Hounds for Heroes as our latest charity to be sponsored at Cotswold Farm Park, where we display collecting boxes. I couldn’t think of a more deserving cause, or a better ambassador for it than EJ, who gave me an affectionate nudge when he came on stage with Allen.
The story of dogs like Endal and EJ make me realise how adaptable dogs are. My sheepdogs are working in much the same way as their ancestors, going back centuries. Despite modern technology, their role has hardly changed: they run across fields and hills, rounding up sheep. Yet assistance dogs have had to learn all about life in the twenty-first century, to be able to help with the everyday aspects of life for their human partners.
Another assistance dog I met is Archie, a miniature poodle (although he’s large for the breed). He is a smashing chap, friendly but always keeping an eye on his owner, William Stavert, who was born profoundly deaf and uses Archie as his ears. I met them when I went on the Great British Dog Walk organised by the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, where they were also walking, raising money for the charity which has helped him so much. I went on the walk with Charlie and Boo.
William says he knew as soon as he met Archie that there was a bond between them, and it’s easy to see that they have become a very close partnership.
‘Archie’s an independent dog, he only comes to me for strokes and cuddles occasionally. But when we are outside he never leaves my side or lets me out of his sight.’
He has twice alerted William to potentially life-threatening situations: once when a faulty toaster was burning the bread and close to setting fire to it, and another time when William forgot that he had put something in the oven. After pawing at William to alert him, Archie is trained to lie down flat if the smoke alarm is going off.
‘The kitchen was full of smoke, goodness knows what would have happened if Archie hadn’t alerted me.’
Archie’s training is for specific sounds. Every morning when William’s alarm goes off, Archie wakes him. He also tells William when the doorbell rings, when the timer for the oven goes off and, most importantly, if the smoke alarm sounds.
He also alerts to fire alarms in public places. When William was working in a college his colleagues forgot to tell him that the fire alarm would be sounded to tell them all it was time for the two minutes’ silence on Remembrance Day. Archie naturally barked and pawed at William when the alarm went off, and William, as usual, shouted ‘What’s that?’ Archie lay flat, to signal it was danger: the fire alarm. It was only when a colleague signalled to them to be quiet because they were disturbing the silence that William realised what it was.
‘If they’d told me first, I’d have taken Archie out of the room!’ he said.
Archie even understands some of the sign language William uses every day – he knows the signs for ‘food’, ‘bed’, ‘walk’, ‘car’.
As well as helping with William’s inability to hear, Archie has brought other benefits to his life.
‘He is a great companion. He makes me go out, and he helps me to meet people. I’d be completely lost without him. He gives me confidence. I love Archie.’
Before Archie came along, William had not had an easy life. He was at school at a time when sign language was not encouraged, and was even banned. The authorities believed that deaf children would do better in life, and be more included in society, if they could lip read and talk. It meant that William was sent away from his home in Malvern at an early age to a boarding school for deaf children, where signing wasn’t allowed.
‘But we did it in the evenings, when the staff weren’t around,’ he said. ‘Then if someone came in we’d switch to speech.’
Today, he tells his story with the help of a British Sign Language interpreter, Deb Watkins. Deb and the other BSL interpreters are special people, completing a long and difficult training to become accredited. They are a vital link between deaf people and a hearing world, and Deb has interpreted in some unusual places, including an operating theatre, laboratories, sports fields, cruise ships and behind the scenes at weddings and funerals.
When William left school at 17, he was taken on for an engineering apprenticeship with the Ministry of Defence, at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment. He says, ‘It came as a shock, moving into a hearing world. I was only used to deaf peers, and I didn’t know how to make friends or communicate.’
He received no help as he tried to learn alongside hearing apprentices, who often mocked him and were cruel. ‘Even the lecturers refused to turn round from the blackboards so that I could lip read.’
After a near breakdown, social services became involved and helped William find a teacher for the deaf to interpret for him in college. He became the first person in adult education at that college to have specialist support.
He completed his apprenticeship, passed with flying colours, and worked at the RSRE for 18 years, until a round of redundancies led to a career change and he went to work as a deaf role model for deaf students in college.
‘The students were as lost as I had once been, and I helped them adjust to living in a hearing world. All the tutors were hearing, so I would intervene in lectures to help deaf students understand.’
He also spent half his time working in a school with younger deaf pupils, until his role was phased out and he was made redundant. By this time, he had Archie, who was very popular at the school and the college, and created a lot of interest in hearing dogs. Being a poodle, Archie does not moult: this was vital when he was chosen for William, because working in a school meant that William could be in contact with pupils who might be allergic to dog hair.
It was William’s sister who first persuaded him that having a dog would give him more independence. Her husband is blind, and consequently she knew about guide dogs and other assistance dogs.
‘I wasn’t sure, but it turned out to be the best thing ever,’ said William.
Every year, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People places over 150 dogs with people who need them, and they are aiming to increase the figure to 200 by the year 2020.
Jay Elcock is a training team leader at the charity, and has worked there for the last ten years. ‘We train the dogs to physically touch the people they are working with in order to alert them. It’s the only reliable way, especially if the deaf person has their eyes closed. With big dogs it’s a nose nudge, with smaller dogs they sit on the ground and put two front paws up onto the person’s legs.
‘When they have been alerted by the dog, the deaf person will use a hand gesture, which means “Where?” Then the dog leads them to the sound, or in the case of danger, like a fire alarm, a burglar alarm or a carbon monoxide detector, they will lie flat on the floor.’ Just like Archie did.
Those who have hearing dogs are encouraged to use a portable timer for the cooker, so that the dog doesn’t have to lead them to a potentially dangerous situation.
Jay recalled one dog owner who commuted into London to work every day, and on the way home, like so many others after a long day at work, had the habit of falling asleep on the train. So he set the timer every day so that it would go off and his dog would wake him up just before they got to the right station. After a while he realised that other people were regularly getting into his carriage, because they too wanted to be woken up and not go beyond their stop.
Another dog was desperately trying to alert its owner to danger, but she could not see anything wrong. Then she looked out of the window and realised that the burglar alarm at the next-door house was flashing, and she phoned the police. The dog had heard the alarm.
Dogs also help those who live with a deaf person. One deaf woman was alerted by her dog when her father, who was upstairs, suffered a heart attack. She phoned for an ambulance and got him to hospital in time to be saved.
A profoundly deaf mother of three children was able to let them play in the garden on their own for the first time after she got a dog: before that she had to be with them, because she would not hear them cry if they fell over. Now the dog fetches her whenever she is needed.
All the hearing dogs are taught to a high level of obedience and manners. I noticed that when I was walking with them there was no skittish misbehaviour, as you often see on dog walks. Of course, they all have to know how to behave in shops, cafés, on public transport – not the normal places for a pet dog.
The most popular dogs for training are the reliable breeds: Labradors, cocker spaniels, poodles and crosses, like cockapoos. Jay believes that any dog could be taught to do the job, but clearly some breeds are happier working than others, so it makes sense to train those.
I really approve of the way the charity trains and looks after its dogs. All the puppies stay with their mothers, living with foster families, until they are eight weeks old, then they go to live with a puppy socialiser, who introduces them to all the normal situations they will encounter with their deaf recipient: walking through a busy town street, going into public places like libraries and so on.
At about ten months old – it varies from dog to dog – they meet their potential new owners and begin their specific training for their lifestyle. They may have to get used to a household with children, or cats, they may have to go to an office every day and lie quietly. The next part of the training is a two-day overnight stay in their new home to see if the pair bond. If it all works out well, the deaf person does a week’s course at a placement centre, working with their dog, and at the end of the week they go home together. There’s more support at home – in fact, all the 800 dogs that the charity has working in Britain today are supported whenever they need help.
I learnt all this about the charity during the walk and at the end we saw an amazing demonstration, which brought home to me just how well these dogs work. The charity has a team of demo dogs, specially trained to work in front of crowds of people and even in television studios, but they essentially do the same job as a dog in a normal home.
A ring was set up in a field, with a room setting with a bed, a chair, a doorbell, an alarm clock, a telephone and a timer. I watched in wonder as an enthusiastic cocker spaniel alerted to every different sound, leading the person to the right noise every time, or lying flat in the general ‘Danger!’ alert.
I know how to train dogs to sounds: that’s what shepherds do with their dogs. We teach them voice commands and whistle commands. These dogs were reacting in exactly the same way that Peg does when I tell her to ‘come by’, or ‘stop’. She hears the sound, and she obeys.
But if a sheepdog gets it wrong, the worst that happens is a few swear words from the farmer or shepherd and another go at it. These dogs can never get it wrong, because the people they live with depend on them so completely, and sometimes they are saved from life-threatening situations by them.
I am full of admiration for these dogs, and all the other assistance dogs who have transformed the lives of so many people. They do it out of devotion and loyalty, and they enjoy it: that’s the most striking thing about all working dogs. They love to be needed and wanted, and they are happy when they have a job to do.