Dr. Amy Kavanagh is a 31-year-old visually impaired activist. She took the time to express her concern about the challenges facing guide dogs when she spoke to Sky News reporters.
Amy who has waited for three years to get a guide dog described a situation where some members of the public continue to ignore the sign on her guide dog harness during the pandemic.
“Ava's a working guide dog and she's got to be focused on her job, which is looking after me. I don't want to catch the virus,” she told reporters in London.
“People need to give us a bit of space. If you can just step out of the way, or if you're queuing outside a shop, Ava might not know that she's got to give you a wide berth, so if you just tuck in a bit that would be amazing.”
Dr. Amy Kavanagh is not exaggerating, guide dogs are supposed to be given a wide space around them since they are not trained on what two-metre social distancing means.
Visually impaired people like Amy who depends on guide dogs are facing this common problem and the increase in people getting lockdown puppies has made matters worse for them.
She said: “These puppies may have been staying at home a lot and they're not very socialised with people or other dogs. We had a very difficult incident where I went to cross a road and a person repeatedly asked their dog to distract Ava. It's just really dangerous.”
During her interaction with reporters, a passer-by stops to ask whether she can stroke her dog, Ava. “She's in the harness so no, not at the moment,” Amy explains, pointing to the sign on her dog's harness.
Not too long, another dog makes her way to Dr. Kavanagh and her dog but, she has to beg the dog's owner to call their dog away.
Amy said: “This happens quite a lot. Even in a situation like this, where we're sat or we're stood waiting, Ava is still working. In the supermarket, if I'm stood by a shelf trying to work out what to buy, people will come and start trying to interact with her and that can even end up pulling me away.”
In one way, the problem is not the dog which you might think may be attracted to another dog. Some people are fun of getting closer to dogs that they're not familiar with and this can be dangerous in some situations. There are instances where people get bitten by strange dogs while they attempt to get too familiar up to the extent of stroking.
But the charity Guide Dogs warns that if you interact with guide dogs, you can set their training into reverse.
“Not only do we sometimes have to re-train the dogs but sometimes that working partnership can break down because the dog could be putting the guide dog owner in danger,” the charity said.
Therefore, as you go out today always remember to safeguard the lives of people using guide dogs so that the world can be a better place for all of us.
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