Monday, November 13, 2006

Your guide dog questions answered

Some frequently asked questions about my wife's guide dog and some answers. Those I'd LIKE to give, anyway. I tell you, people are frigging unoriginal and the boredom value in answering them is best alleviated with a seriously cruel dose of irony. Here's my attempt at it.

“What’s your dog’s name?”
Her full legal name (in the manner of naming racehorses) is “Walker’s Potato Crisps Have Sponsored This Dog for a Poor Socially Excluded Blind Victim”. Her “working” name is “Nikki” which is a “pet” version of Tuna Nicoise, a flavour Walkers Crisps tried out in the North-East ACORN region 32 then abandoned after poor focus group survey reports. Sadly, she wasn't renamed Nacho or the sweetie-cutsie "Pickle".

“Isn’t that a cute doggy”
Yes, its cute because Guide Dogs are now genetically modifying their dogs in order that they appeal to children and bears with very little brain. The GM trials were broadly successful, but various sceptical scientists have posited that there is a high probability that dogs’ lives are reduced by over two years compared to non-GM dogs. The cost of vanity, eh?

“Is he/she your best friend”
No. My best friend, Katie, tragically died in a car accident in 1994 when her guide dog Sally pulled her in front of a fast-moving truck. The lorry driver suffered months of stress. Oddly, Nicki seems to have acquired a psychic link with my deceased friend and now leads me to her graveside where I regularly mourn while Nicki howls her poor doggy heart out.

“Can your doggy play safely with children”?
In theory YES, though she hasn’t been licensed to without a muzzle, technically required under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1988*. She hasn’t injured anyone yet. Caveat emptor…

* Clarification – she’s not as you can see, actually “dangerous”. However, since she is a working dog, like police- or military-dogs, she’s technically NOT a pet, and therefore, she is automatically subject to much harsher licensing laws than ordinary pet dogs.

“Can your dog do your washing”?
Why, YES. One of the benefits of creating a genetically modified dog is that her saliva glands have been re-aligned so they also produce a perfect oxygen/enzyme mix required to clean all manner of common household dirt to be found on clothes. My dog really appreciates getting her tongue round my husband’s skiddy pants.

“Can your dog read to you”?
Guide Dogs are continually working on giving their dogs voices that can read back text messages and issue other short commands to blind people. However, although my dog can read, and perfectly understands SMS messages and other simple text material, at this time she cannot communicate back to me. Sad but (maybe) true.

“I bet she’s the most important person in your life”?
As you might care to observe, she’s not a “person” as such, but a mere dog. My daughter is the most important person in my life, and since her dog is the most important person in her life, following the argument through, her dog is in fact the most important thing – dog or human – in my life. This may seem confusing, but honestly, it makes perfect sense once you think on. I did say daughter, by the way. I know it’s maybe an oddity to your prejudices that a) blind people have sex and b) a quick shag with the milkman feels as good to me as it does anyone else. I had to pay Mr Express Dairy danger money for his services though since he thought he might “catch” blindness from me. He was right in a manner of speaking: I gave him a dose of the syph. He went blind. Ha ha.

“I used to have one of those dogs” or “I used to look after a retired guide dog/guide dog puppy” or “I raised £25,000,000 for those blind dogs once”
So has everyone else I’ve met. Why are there so few dogs around then? Why aren't more guide dogs than ordinary dogs on the street? In fact there should be more guide dogs than humans in the whole world!! The maths just doesn’t work. Oh yes, and think about the moniker you use to define my aid: a “blind dog” is not really useful to a blind person is it?

“Why don’t all blind people have dogs?”
Simply, only really bright blind people get them. A guide dog is a fantastic mobility tool but they cost thousands of pounds to train and need a lot of sighted help in their preparation. Blind people are not worth much to society, but it is agreed by many academics, albeit reluctantly, that even those who are free of sight have their uses. I’m a fully qualified comptometer programmer at the University of East Acton. I fulfil a vital role in the running of the Government’s research project into the settlement and rehousing of Homophobian refugees. You may have noticed that most blind people don’t have guide dogs. You can be assured that these people have a lower IQ than average and are thus, in the words of Bill and Ted “NOT WORTHY”. Please pity them, and give them any small change you have, as they will be in desperate financial need not having a job nor a cute little dog as a people-magnet.

“How can I raise money for Guide Dogs”?
As a trusted user, I am a therefore an agent for the UK Guide Dogs organisation. If you wish to give direct, then any money you pass to me will be paid straight into Guide Dogs’ account. Promise. Larger amounts can be transferred securely via Western Union to the Internet bank account at:

Funraiser419@lagos-bank.ng.com



If you have any further questions about my dog, or me please email me at

Compt_programmer@east-acton.ac.uk

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