Our dogs are as diverse as their owners, thousands of interesting relationships develop between them. National White Cane Awareness Day celebration for visually impaired people. This time we introduce three of our clients who live completely different lives with the help of their loyal companions. With their help, we are looking for the answer of what makes these relationships so beautiful.
The two city types
For many, the city centre of Budapest is a tiring loud bustle. However, this is the spice of life for Ani. It is interesting to note how city streets become a true cultural and community experience for visually impaired people with an excellent guide dog at their side.
The culture and vibrancy
Kállai Antónia is a true downtown type of woman. Her lifeblood is the bustle, culture and entertainment, especially the theatre.
“Iram also really loves the theatre, but he is more the cinema type because there are better smells there. You have to be really quiet in the theatre and if he snores, it could be a little bothersome.” Says Ani while smiling.
Although she doesn’t have her own balcony, downtown compensated for everything. Whenever she goes down to the street, something is always happening. They often run into 30-40 member small concerts at local alternative bars and clubs. Iram really enjoys these.
Iram likes being the city centre
Ani has been living in the city centre with her dogs for a decade. Both Iram and her previous dog had been trained by the Baráthegyi Guide Dog School Foundation. Ani told us that the hustle-bustle of Budapest doesn’t suit every four-legged companion.
However, Iram is quite extraordinary. The energetic, extremely curious and open-minded dog became a “proper downtown dog”. He is absolutely city compatible: it is easy to avoid crowds with him, he moves confident in the thick of it. He adores long walks, so this way they don’t necessarily use dog parks to let off steam. Instead they explore all the streets of Terézváros again and again for about 1.5 to 2 hours every day.
The perfect partner and saviour
Next to his curiosity, his owner is always the focus for Iram.
“Anything happens, and how I react is always the most important to him. This is the first thing he observes, and only after that will he pay attention to anything else.”
This strong bond and attentiveness is the key to safety. Ani told us how important the awareness of her dog is when they are travelling.
„Iram is an outstandingly well-trained dog. He has saved me several times from speeding scooters, scooters ignoring the rules, and food delivery cyclists that were using the sidewalk.”
She replaced gothic elegance with a guide dog
Kasztner Flóra Akác (Acacia) have been living in Szombathely fr three years. We visited them to get to know the versatile, interesting girl and her guide dog.
We started the day with Flóra and Akác in the Szombathelyi Park forest. The guide dog’s trainer, Köbli Mónika, and her three trainees accompanied us on the walk.
“Flóra is a very sensitive, endlessly cool and good-humoured young woman. I immediately knew that Akác would fit her wonderfully. He is just as sensitive and kind, but he is always up for some fun. When they first met, it was obvious that my gut feeling had been right, they started working together in fantastic harmony.” said Mónika.
This is how Flóra put it: “Akác can be just as crazy as me, both of us can really immerse ourselves in things. The things we do, we do it with the same amount of heart, but we our calmness also matches. We know nothing is impossible.”
They gave the security guard a legal order
They really don’t scare easy, the following story is a testament to that fact. A security guard at a national chain store in Szombathely did not want to let Flóra and her guide dog in, he was of course mistaken to do this. Despite this they went it, and when they got home Flóra and her sister printed the legal regulations regarding guide dogs. Then she went back to hand it to the security guard, it was laminated so it can withstand a lot of reading for a long while.
Akác in the voting booth
To Flóra her style is important in clothing too. “Before Akác, I represented gothic elegance. But black velvet and a yellow labrador don’t go well together.” (The punchline is at the end of the article)
The pair went to vote during the parliamentary elections. Some say that the way they looked in the voting booth was quite memorable: “A funny person there asked how much the voting counts as secret when the dog is sticking halfway out of the booth.”
The arts are special to Flóra, she likes to write and paint – the latter is helped by her still retaining 10% of her vision. The fact she wants to conquer the world of music didn’t surprise us: “I am going to learn to play piano, oh and I’ll get a piano from somewhere.” It is not an accident that a career in sound engineering interests her, she will continue her studies in that field as soon as she is able to. She can be found in another place in the world of sounds: she goes to concerts at the Szombathelyi Last Stop Club, so whoever goes there has a chance of running into her.
They started a new life in the capital
“I am in a constant state of problem-solving” – a talented young man turned this into a career. This is literally what drives him forward. Furthermore, his problem isn’t temporary, because the reason for this is a serious lack of something, his sight. We talked with Attila Bodnár, who is full of confidence having started a new life this Spring, in Budapest with his guide dog Parfé.
Problem solving, or something similar
For over a decade, he typed on keyboards, solving difficult theoretical tasks in an IT development firm. During this, he isolated himself from people. He had enough, he wanted something different from life so he started different studies which led him back to human connection. Currently he works in higher education, among visually impaired students.
Of course, he has been affected by rejections too: “I had a lot of job interviews on the open market, and many times I wasn’t hired because I’m visually impaired. Of course, no one said that aloud, and they never will. These people were looking at what isn’t there. I can’t see, that’s a fact, but they didn’t notice that I have extra knowledge that go beyond those of a fully able-bodied colleague for example.”
At his first workplace, a developer company in Szeged, they told him that they won’t hire him, that they can’t give him a job, because he can’t see. After that he constantly applied for their open positions.
“I went back six times, until the boss said fine, he was bored of the whole thing, so he’d hire me. I worked there for almost five years as lead developer.” he says with a smile.
After a year, his boss in Szeged realised that Attila shouldn’t make him do things that he can’t do, but rather he should do things he is better at than others. There were tasks like this.
We circled this idea a few times, trying to figure out what he might be better at than the other developers, until one word took shape in Attila’s mind.
“Problem-solving. Because every day I’m in problem-solving mode. For example, how I should get from point A to point B, how I should solve a trivial task. The fact that I’m constantly in problem-solving mode was a bonus skill at work. Since I’m not looking for ways a task can’t be done, I’m looking for ways to do it quickly.
Now looking back on it, he thinks he was rather pushy, but he did the right thing, because if he hadn’t gone back that many times then he wouldn’t have the basic knowledge a mentor developer taught him.
“I’m not saying that people have to do exactly what I did, because it requires a certain personality. But you have to do something similar so that they talk to us. You have to be a bit pushy, you have to be more than average.”
At a new home with Parfé
After leaving the overly rigid and isolated developer lifestyle, the following was the commute between Veszprém and his university workplace. Several hours per day on a train was too much for Parfé, who turns seven this year. Attila conversed with the ones who trained his dog, the Baráthegyi Guide and Assistance Dog School Foundation, and they agreed that Parfé needs less workload, more exercise and more free time.
The male Labrador has been loyally helping him for six years, which Attila repaid by moving them to Budapest. This way instead of several hours of daily commuting, they now have time for each other. He told us they tried out many apartment but none of them had the right feel. The dog didn’t feel good, and neither did he. Finally they found a perfect apartment with a small garden in the XII. district.
I mapped out the neighbourhood with my sighted friends and I quickly took a liking to it. It’s important that here in Városmajor, I feel like I’m in a small forest, from which I can easily reach the city centre.” Attila said.
From their home they can easily get to the dog park, and even after just one day of living here, they have already befriended Pacsni and his owner. “I think people here are open-minded and welcoming. I’m confident that Parfé and I will find our place here too.”
Returning to the question from the beginning of this article, which gets a short answer this time: “The relationship between a guide dog and their owner is made beautiful by the love the two have, and how they always pay attention to each other.” If you had a different answer come to mind, please write us your own answer under the article or in an email to [email protected] and we will share it.
The solution/punchline we promised earlier: yellow dog fur stands out very obviously on black clothes, which the visually impaired owner doesn’t notice.
Support opportunities
Every individual who contributes to the training of guide dogs through their support is important to us. We announce with great pleasure that even companies are making this decision now.
If you would like to take part in more guide dog couples starting their journeys together, then there are several ways you can support us.
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OTP Bank – 11734004-20466859
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