Luca, a black Labrador and visually impaired helper lies silently at the feet of his owner, Jenny Pretorius.
The Fish Hoek resident was paired with Luca last year December.
This month the pup features on shopper bags, as part of a campaign to raise R700 000 in 70 days for the SA Guide Dog Association’s 70th birthday.
Regional marketing manager at the SA Guide Dog Association, Jackie Quail, explains:
“SA Guide Dogs Association is turning 70 this year and for part of our celebrations, we launched a campaign called 70 Days of Giving, where we will try and raise R700 000 in 70 days.
“We have a sponsorship programme as we are a non-profit organisation and receive no government funding, so we rely on fund-raising and sponsorships to get our dogs trained. If you sponsor R100 000 it pays for a dog’s training and you get to name the dog.
“Pick n Pay came along and they did the sponsorship for Luca and got to name him.”
She adds that their guide dogs are all born and bred at the SA Guide Dog Association’s head office in Johannesburg.
“We breed all of our dogs. We have a place called Puppy Block and they are born there. They live with their mom for the first eight weeks of their lives and then after that, they go to volunteers that work for us.
“These volunteers are called Puppy Raisers and they look after the pups for us from the age of eight weeks all the way until they are 14 months old.”
During this time puppies are taken to puppy classes and socialisation training until the age of 14 months.
“These dogs get used to being out in public and when they are about 14-months-old they come back to the association and we start their formal training.
“The training lasts about six months after which they are paired with their person.”
In Luca and Jenny’s case, they paired perfectly together.
“Luca is easy-going, he is very devoted to his person and Jenny needed a dog that could help her with guiding but also with hearing and Luca just fitted that brief,” says Quail.
Jenny’s mom, Jean Pretorius, says her daughter was born profoundly deaf and her eyesight started to fail when she was a teenager.
“She was born profoundly deaf and when her sister was born, we tested her and she was also profoundly deaf.
“They went to a school for the deaf in Cape Town and when we first got a notion with a problem with her eyes she was 13. One of her sisters came to me one day and said when Jenny plays tennis, she can’t see the ball on the sides of the tennis court.
“And that was the first inkling of the problem with her eyes.”
She added that having a guide dog changed Jenny’s life and made her very independent.
“Kaine was her first guide dog and he was lovely and Luca is perfect as well. They have changed her; she is so independent and goes for walks by herself.
“Before she had a guide dog, she used to use a long cane and she would walk alone with the cane in Fish Hoek and people would come past and kick it out of the way, it was very sad.
“The dogs have changed her life completely.”
Pick n Pay loyalty marketing manager Lauren Hard said a limited-edition fabric shopping bag is on sale, a portion of the proceeds going to the SA Guide Dog Association.
“The SA Guide Dog Association recently reached out to us about its 70 days of giving campaign and we wanted to help,” she said.
“We produced these beautiful limited-edition fabric shopping bags featuring the guide dogs on them. There’s also a QR code customers can scan, and R5 from the sale of the bag goes towards the initiative.” The cost of the shopping bag is R40.
Five percent of the store’s Nutriphase dog food will also go towards the campaign, to help raise R100 000, which will go towards the association’s R700 000 target, Hard pointed out.
