In the News

Guide Dog Shortage

Liz Blamire

11th January 2023

You may have heard that there is a shortage of guide dogs. Whilst most people wait for a guide dog to be trained by an organisation such as Guide Dogs, it is possible for users to train their own!

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted on the supply of guide dogs in two ways. Firstly, all breeding at Guide Dogs, the world's biggest breeder of assistance dogs, stopped for 5 months. Secondly, up to 1/3 of the charity's puppy handlers stopped working for them. As it takes at least 2 years to train a puppy, it will take a while for the supply of assistance dogs to recover.

Learn more by watching the video below.

But service users can train their own dogs! You can read more about this process on the BBC - Guide dog shortage: The blind people who train their own guide dogs - or listen to the Access All podcast - The people who train their own guide dogs.

Liz Blamire

Liz is the current tutor2u subject lead for Health and Social Care. She is a former NHS midwife, who has worked in community, birth centre and acute hospital settings. Liz is an SSAT Accredited Lead Practitioner, who has taught Health and Social Care in FE and secondary schools, where she was a successful HOD. Liz is an experienced senior examiner and author.

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