The Journey of a Guide Dog
A series that follows the journey of our life-changing guide dogs from genetics to retirement.
Have you ever wondered what the journey of a guide dog looks like? Our new eleven-part series builds awareness of how we raise, care for, and train our dogs to change the lives of people living with sight loss.
Our dedicated team travelled the UK to capture the commitment, love and time that goes into creating a guide dog, how we match guide dogs to guide dog owners and what happens when a guide dog’s working career comes to an end.
Watch the series to learn how guide dogs give people with sight loss the confidence to get out and about safely and provide life-changing support every single day.
A guide dog partnership will be the best experience you ever have. You'll have a friend for life, and Guide Dogs will look after you all the way.
Watch all episodes now
Find out why we use certain breeds in our world-class breeding programme and what genetic, health and behavioural traits we look for in our guide dogs to meet the needs of all the people we support.
Learn more about how we ensure our guide dog mums are happy and comfortable throughout pregnancy and birth and that their puppies are healthy and developing well.
Discover why it's important to help our guide dog puppies build a positive bank of experiences throughout their time in their volunteer Breeding Dog Holder’s homes.
Meet guide dog puppies, Vera, Sally and Elizabeth, at different stages of their journey and hear how our volunteer Puppy Raisers feel when a guide dog puppy enters their home for the first time.
Step behind the scenes as we explore how we use positive reinforcement training to give our dogs the skills, experience, and confidence for their future as life-changers.
We're invited into the homes of some of our volunteer Training Dog Fosterers and their guide dogs in training, to hear all about what makes this role so rewarding.
Alan, Carys and Judith embark on their class training. Learn about when guide dogs are matched with their future guide dog owners and learn all the important skills to become a successful partnership.
We meet guide dog owners, Rowena and Rhiannon, and their guide dogs, Winter and Bailey. Hear what they have to say about their life-changing guide dogs and how they work together as a partnership.
Find out what alternative career paths are available if our dogs aren't suited to a career as a guide dog and how they change lives in other ways.
John, Nathan and Veronica share their stories of the end of their guide dog partnerships and how guide dogs spend their well-earned retirement.
Join us to visit one of Guide Dogs' veterinary clinics and discover how the welfare of our dogs is at the forefront of everything we do.
Feature-length documentary
Watch our teaser trailer for The Journey of a Guide Dog feature-length documentary, coming soon, filled with unseen stories and footage from our series.
About the series
The filming for The Journey of a Guide Dog began in the beginning of 2022. We created a vision for the series and began sharing our ideas. After careful planning, we were ready to make a start! The series begins with an insight into the science behind our world-class breeding programme and follows the complex journey of our life-changing guide dogs, ending with the emotions of guide dog retirement following a successful working partnership of a guide dog owner and their guide dog.
Of course, no journey comes without its challenges! From battling gruelling British weather, coming face to face with a farmer’s flock of escaped sheep, and at times shedding some tears, we had a great adventure capturing the stories of all the inspiring people and dogs involved in the series.
We spent time with people across the country, and have been lucky enough to capture some of the most unique and intimate moments of these journeys. We'd like to thank all the Guide Dogs staff for helping us to make this series, as well as our amazing volunteers, the inspiring people who use our services and life-changing dogs.
I’ve learnt so much and have seen first-hand how we change people's lives. From watching guide dog puppies take their first steps, experiencing how our dogs are trained, and filming happily retired guide dogs, it’s been a beautiful journey.
Behind the scenes
