Orion: The Star of the Show!

With your support, Orion is a shining light for Gene.

Orion may be a labrador with jet black fur, but for Gene, he’s truly a bright part of every day! For over two years, they’ve been an inseparable duo.

Orion was a little shy at the beginning, but was soon at his doggy best. “Orion’s self-confidence has grown in leaps and bounds since I have had him,” Gene says with a smile, “I had noticed his confidence was lacking in the beginning. He didn’t like the cold or wet and didn’t really want to work. But over the first few weeks I helped him to build up his confidence and he’s got quicker walking. He’s a little star now!”

Gene believes he accomplished this by giving Orion lots of love, something he’s learned with previous guide dogs that retired which he then adopted. “Orion is probably the dog that I’ve bonded with the most,” he tells us, “I’ve never had a guide dog follow me wherever I go!”

“Getting a guide dog – a guiding angel, I call them – is quite scary at first,” says Gene. “Learning to navigate with them and developing your confidence in them, as well as their confidence in you takes time, but once you are both familiar with each other, you can navigate quite quickly around your neighbourhood and beyond. You have to work as a team. It’s a matter of total trust.”

Thanks to ongoing support like yours, we can train more beloved Guide Dogs like Orion, as well as provide many other services such as orientation, mobility and white cane training – and change the lives of many more Kiwis.