From puppies to GUIDE DOGS

One woman shares her experience of volunteering for Guide Dogs UK

- MISHAAL KHAN

There are 4,000 working guide dogs in the UK, playing an important part in ensuring blind and visually impaired people are an integrated part of society. Each one needs to go through around two years of rigorous training, with the help of 14,000 volunteers who, between them, contribute 13m hours of their time each year.

For one such volunteer, Nimmi Whitelaw, training guide dogs was something that had sparked her interest since she was a child, and when she finally had the time and financial freedom, decades later, she knew she wanted to get involved.

‘I grew up in India and my parents were fond of animals. We always had pets, and my mum often took in and fostered other people’s dogs,’ Nimmi, 54, says. ‘I remember reading magazines from the UK, and one day, I learnt about guide dogs. The concept didn’t exist in India, and I thought it was wonderful. For a dog to be able to help a person like that, it warmed my heart.’

In 1995, Nimmi moved from Bangalore to Glasgow, after marrying her husband Stuart, now 54. Stuart was a dog lover too, and the couple got two flat-coated retrievers, called Kaala and Kajal, before having children in 1999 and 2003. Nimmi was busy raising her family, but the thought of volunteering as a puppy raiser wasn’t far from her mind.

‘A friend had started volunteering, and seeing it first hand, I fell in love with the idea. I knew at some stage in my life, I would do it if I could.’