While walking my Jackapoo Mortie, the other day, I wore my Dog Guide shirt, something I picked up as a souvenir when I was visiting an open house day as research for one of the Beauty books, Bringing Up Beauty, A Different Kind of Beauty, Beauty Returns. My dog met a rescue dog from one of the first nations reserves and his owner Judy Appleby and I got talking. She asked me whether I worked at DogGuides and I told her about writing those books.
Her jaw dropped and she said that it was as a result of reading Bringing Up Beauty her family fostered Grover, a successful guide dog. It wasn't her two sons who had read the book, rather Judy herself read it after seeing a story on it in the newspaper.
She went on to say that Grover guided for seven years. When he began suffering health issues, he needed to retire and her family took him back. Coincidentally her son had been suffering from some kind of slump, a teen depression. The dog and her son, spent long hours together just lying in front of the television, her son patting him. After about three months both recovered. She feels they healed each other. I'm glad I wore the shirt that day.
