Alison Flack

We first got involved with Irish Guide Dogs in 1981. We had 3 small children and a Labrador at the time when my husband saw an advertisement for puppy raisers in the local garage. He thought piddling puppies might be a nice change from nappies!!  That was the start of our long association with Irish Guide Dogs.

We had previously met Mrs. Mary Dunlop (always Mrs. Dunlop or Mrs. D never Mary) at dog shows where she gave demonstrations with her German Shepherd Jan, raising money towards setting up a guide dog centre in Ireland. 

In 1981, Hill Farm was an old building not really suitable for visually impaired people due to narrow corridors and lots of steps!  Things were very different back then, as the association was in its infancy and money was tight. Many times in the evenings, I drove to the airport to collect a pup being flown in from Guide Dogs in the UK.

The first pup we got was Dell from the very first ‘D’ litter. The handing over was filmed for ‘Young Line’, an RTE children’s programme, and I remember my 3-year-old daughter standing nose to nose with a guide dog owner, who was taking part in the programme, and demanding to know why he couldn’t see her!

A few years later, we watched as one of ‘our’ pups guided his new owner down South Mall and one of the children asked what the dog was doing. We explained that the man was blind and ‘our’ dog was his new guide dog. After a pause, she said, ‘Oh, is that what they do?’ . We then realised we had never actually explained to the children what the dogs were being trained to do!

Over the years, we had many dogs, and there were only a few we were pleased to hand over. They were usually the pups that our Labrador did not bond with, and most of them failed their training. The rest all took a bit of our hearts away with them.

One of our ‘failures’ we kept – she was a pig in a dog’s coat. If there was a butcher shop beside a bank, the guide dog owner would never get into the bank. She lived to a grand old age, but food was never safe from her.

We were involved in the Rochestown/Douglas fundraising branch and have wonderful memories of a variety of fundraising events from concerts to a Sotheby’s valuation day, many, many flag days always on the 2nd Thursday in October, church gate collections, dog fashion shows etc. All great fun with a wonderful group of people. We also compiled two cookery books, ‘My Master’s Choice’.

Through Irish Guide Dogs we also met some really wonderful and inspiring people, some famous – Andrea Bocelli, Queen Camilla (when she was the Duchess), Roy Keane, Brendan Grace, to name a few.

We would like to pay tribute to Pat Gunn (original fundraising manager), Michael Edmonds (Puppy raising and breeding manager), Bernie Whelton (Board member and fundraiser), the late Jacqui Browne (Board member and advocate for disabilities), David Ducker a vet and his wife Margaret who were the original brood bitch holders and really great company, and many more people we met along the way who gave their time and money to support us in our fundraising efforts.

Alison Flack