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Seeing-eye dogs: A four-legged friend

A perfect team: Life is fun again for Silvo Góis now that he has his guide dog Zircon.

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A perfect team: Life is fun again for Silvo Góis now that he has his guide dog Zircon.

Bayer HealthCare is supporting a very special project in Brazil: the first Latin American training center for guide dogs which help blind people cope with the difficulties of everyday life. Silvo Góis is one of these people.

Constant companion: Silvo Góis can rely on Zircon to guide him safely through the hustle and bustle of the city.

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Constant companion: Silvo Góis can rely on Zircon to guide him safely through the hustle and bustle of the city.

Silvo Góis has never seen his best friend. He can picture what he looks like, though: his light brown coat, large, floppy ears, powerful legs and even his dark, friendly eyes. Góis can only distinguish shapes – and even then only when it is extremely bright, if at all. That's the way it has been for more than three years now – years during which the images in his head have faded to distant memories and during which, in his mind's eye, his children have not grown any older. It would be enough to plunge most people into deep depression, but not Silvo Góis. “I've got Zircon,” he explains. Zircon is a guide dog, a Labrador. All guide dogs have to be intelligent and good-natured. But anyone watching Zircon lead his master safely through the streets of Sobradinho, a suburb of Brasilia, can see that this dog is particularly affectionate and aware of his responsibility. Zircon is at his master's side twenty-four hours a day. “And I'm really grateful to him,” says Góis.

The 32-year-old accountancy student has not been blind since birth, but was born with the genetic trait that causes retinitis pigmentosa. This is the name given to a group of hereditary eye diseases that cause progressive degeneration of the retinal tissue.

“In elementary school I could still see everything, but during high school I got to the stage where I couldn't read the board any more and at night I was completely blind,” Góis explains. At that time he could still read books with the aid of a powerful magnifying glass, but even that is no longer possible. He can only follow the lectures at university by listening intently.

Zircon accompanies Góis into the auditorium. During the lectures, he lies dozing at his master's feet, but as soon as Góis moves, the dog is alert. “He knows it's time to work.” Work for Zircon means guiding his master safely around obstacles, and that includes a hole in the road or a missing manhole cover. He has been specially trained to do this. Zircon loves his work. “Labradors are friendly creatures, totally without aggression and always eager to please their master or mistress,” says Marcelo Teixeira Dantas, a fire chief who was the initiator of the 'Cão-Guia' project which trains Labradors as guide dogs in Brasilia.

Bayer supports unique training center for guide dogs

The program, a first for Brazil and Latin America, has been running for three years and is supported by Bayer. Bayer Animal Health, a market leader in the veterinary drug sector, has undertaken to provide veterinary care for the dogs throughout their lives.

Training for master and dog: Silvo Góis completed a special training course for dog-owners, during which he learned the commands he needs to communicate with the guide dog.

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Training for master and dog: Silvo Góis completed a special training course for dog-owners, during which he learned the commands he needs to communicate with the guide dog.

“The idea of training guide dogs for the blind came to me while I was talking to a visually impaired Labrador breeder,” Dantas explains. He already had experience in the training of search dogs. So, armed with this knowledge, he and two colleagues from the fire department set off in 2001 for Canada, home to the Mira Foundation which has been training guide dogs since 1981.

When the three firemen returned to Brasilia after six months, they not only had a certificate to prove that they were qualified to train guide dogs for the blind and set up a training center known as the 'Centro Integra de Treinamento de Cães-Guia'. They also brought four Labradors with them: Quartz, Nickel, Gypsy – and Zircon.

Góis and Zircon didn't hit it off straight away, because they couldn't understand each other. “Zircon only responded to commands in French and I only spoke Portuguese,” Góis says. Now, when he wants to go right, he gives the order “à droite” and immediately Zircon changes direction and turns right.

In order to work successfully with his dog, the Brazilian needs a lot of commands in French, which he learned during a special training course for dog-owners. “Couche” is probably Zircon's favorite, because that means it's time for a little snooze – under Góis' desk in the afternoon, for example, when he is working at the consumers' association 'Procon'. Góis has been working at Procon since 1993 to support himself and his family. He has been married for 14 years to Regina, who is also 85 percent visually impaired, but does not require help. “Fortunately our three children are healthy,” Góis says. The youngest is four, the eldest 13.

“There are days when you wouldn’t turn a dog out”

In the Góis' apartment Zircon, too, is mostly “off duty”. “As long as he is wearing his harness he is on call, so to speak, and solely concerned with looking after me,“ Góis says.

After hours: When the working day is over, Góis plays with Zircon.

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After hours: When the working day is over, Góis plays with Zircon.

But as soon as the harness is removed, he is released from his guiding role. Then he is free to romp with the children and allows Góis to stroke him and call him “garoto”, meaning “boy”. Zircon is then not so much an animal as a member of the family.

Góis loves his Zircon dearly. The extent of this love becomes clear during the rainy season, when torrential downpours threaten to submerge Sobradinho in the space of just a few hours. “There are days when you wouldn't turn a dog out,” he says. And he means it literally. On such days, he really does leave his dog indoors and makes his own way to the university in the capital. “These are dreadful days for me because I have to rely on other people again.”

That used to be the case all the time. “That doesn't mean I wouldn't have coped,” Góis insists, and acts as if all the bumps and bruises he suffered as a result of falls and collisions were nothing. “OK, it took me a lot longer to do things,” he concedes, “but I was never unhappy.”

As he speaks, Zircon lies down at his feet. Góis feels this and his eyes rest on the handsome animal just as if he could see him. “But now I'm so grateful to him. He's more than a dog to me. He's a friend for life.”