Helen Smith was cleaning her bathroom and listening to the radio, some time after the pandemic, when a story came on about a shortage of guide dogs. The pandemic had made it hard to breed puppies. One vision-impaired owner faced a two-year wait for a new dog. Knowing the importance of her own relationship with dogs, Smith was overcome with sadness for him. Right then, she thought, \u201cWell, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?\u201d<\/p>\n
She was living in the south of Hesse, in Germany, having moved in 1998 from Shropshire for her husband\u2019s work. Their daughters were nine and three. The family settled. They got a dog. Smith found tutoring work and started a business teaching English.<\/p>\n
But in 2011, her husband, Paul, died. \u201cIt was a great shock. Some sort of virus that affected his heart. He was 52,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, what do I do? Come back to England? Or stay in Germany and work really hard to support us?\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith decided to stay; her daughters were at critical points in their education. \u201cLuckily we had the dog\u201d \u2013 a bernese mountain dog. Soon after, they got a briard. \u201cDogs are so wonderful, because you don\u2019t need to talk to them. They just understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dogs had been part of Smith\u2019s family life since she was born. \u201cMy mum had type 1 diabetes. Unfortunately, she had a miscarriage, and lost her first child. My dad bought her a wire hair fox terrier puppy, called Nimby, to try to get her over this.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Smith came along, there were no further children, and Nimby was like a sibling. \u201cI had a little tricycle and Dad made a pull-along trailer. There are pictures of Nimby sitting in there, me cycling up and down \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, after Smith married, Paul brought home a puppy from a local builder \u2013 they called her Lotus. In time, Lotus helped their youngest daughter learn to walk. \u201cShe would hold on to the dog\u2019s collar and walk beside her.\u201d We are talking on a video call, and Smith glances down at the dog at her feet \u2013 Blossom, a labrador.<\/p>\n
Helen and Blossom. Photograph: Guide Dogs<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you come up to a certain age, you think, am I continuing on this path or am I going to do something a bit different?\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n
She had been feeling \u201cincreasingly isolated. My children had left home before Covid \u2026 I was devastated by Brexit.\u201d She also began to question her language skills. \u201cEvery time an official letter came through the letterbox, I had this fear arising in me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought there must be more to life than working in my garden, working on my business, and seeing my family occasionally.\u201d<\/p>\n
By June 2022, she knew she wanted to return to the UK. \u201cI had this idea that I would look after a \u2018guide dog mum\u2019\u201d \u2013 a dog that will provide puppies to be trained. \u201cBut my confidence was low. I thought, \u2018You live by yourself. They won\u2019t want you \u2026 I\u2019m too old.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith had grown up in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, a short drive from the Guide Dogs National Centre (formerly known as the National Breeding Centre). \u201cIt was something we all knew about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She whittled the contents of her house down to a truckload. \u201cI was letting go of 25 years of being in Germany.\u201d She returned to Warwickshire and the day after she moved into her new house, she applied to look after a guide dog mum. Within a month, Blossom was brought to meet her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when she ran into the room, it was, Oh my goodness, she\u2019s so big! Oh my goodness, she\u2019s so lively. The first week, I got up at six. I was so excited to go downstairs and see her.\u201d<\/p>\n
It sounds like love. \u201cIt is,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n
Guide Dogs pays for Blossom\u2019s vet bills, insurance and food. When the time comes, the puppies will be born at Smith\u2019s home, with support from a vet at the end of the phone. She will look after them for seven weeks, before they start their guide dog training.<\/p>\n
Blossom has brought Smith new friends, and a community. Now, fellow villagers drop off newspapers for when the puppies come, and Smith has joined Guide Dogs fundraising groups.<\/p>\n
Blossom\u2019s lanyard \u2013 it says \u201cGuide Dog Mum\u201d \u2013 starts conversations. \u201cI go out and have dinner at the cafe, and she\u2019s lying at my feet. If I hadn\u2019t got her, I would never go to a cafe by myself. Blossom has given me confidence to do all sorts of things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Helen Smith was cleaning her bathroom and listening to the radio, some time after the pandemic, when a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-365939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}