00:11 S1
On Vision Australia Radio, you're listening to the Seeing Eye Dogs Show - with me, your host, Harriet Moffat. On this episode of the show, I'm joined by breeder and puppy carers Hilary Buchan and Peter Geraerts. In belated recognition of Father's Day, we wanted to give you some insight into the life of a stud dog at Seeing Eye Dogs, and what the life of breeder carers is like. We're going to introduce you to stud dog Robbie, raised and cared for by Hillary and Pete.
In select regions of Victoria. We are looking for some more wonderful breeder carers. It's the perfect, caring option for someone who would prefer to care for an adult dog rather than puppies, whilst still being part of our Seeing Eye Dog program and supporting the lives of people who are blind or have low vision. You can head to our website at sed.visionaustralia.org to find out about volunteering options including Breeder Caring.
And now here is my interview with Hillary and Peter.
S3
Hi I'm Hillary.
S2
I'm Pete.
S1`
Thank you for joining me on the show today.
01:14 S2
Thank you. Thanks for inviting us. Yeah, it's a pleasure.
01:17 S1
So just to start off with, can you please introduce yourselves?
01:21 S2
Peter Gerards. This is my my wife, Hilary, and we're puppy carers for Vision Australia. And we love our job. And we've got so much enjoyment out of it. The we've been involved with it now for quite a few years. This is, we've got we've just gone to our fourth dog and we've got out of them just as much as we've been able to put into them, haven't we, darling? Absolutely. It's been a real ride for us, a joyous ride and one that's given us a lot of pleasure. It really has.
01:50 S1
What made you decide to get involved?
01:53 S2
Hello. My wife, all of a sudden. She just came up one day and said, This is what I'd like to do. And I said, No, darling, we're not going to do that. Because I couldn't think of anything worse than getting a puppy at eight weeks old. And then knowing that you'd have to give it up after 12 or 14 months, which was the deal. And because I've had dogs in the past, and I know I can still feel when I've lost some of them and had to go away, and to do that just was completely something that I really didn't think I wanted to do. But she talked me into it, and it's one of the best things she's ever talked me into because we love it.
02:23 S1
Especially signing up for it intentionally. It's like, what? Who who came up with that?
02:28 S3
You know, I'd never had a dog in my life.
S1
Oh, really?
S3
Yeah, ever. And when our puppy development trainer walked in the first day, he arrived and he said, hi, here's Ozzy, boom! and handed him to me and just walked out, and walked out. He said, I'm just going to go and get his stuff. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I don't know what to do with this. And they had a baby. Do you hold it this way? Do you hold it that way? Yeah.
02:50 S2
I look after all the information that we had received about what to do with the dogs and how to look after them and how to train them, I was confident that I would be able to do a really good job. Good job. But it's not a precursor because no, no, no, not at all. But. And because of my role in that, you were just super comfortable from it right from the very start. And you just took to them like a house on fire, especially Ozzy, because he was our first dog and he was a special dog. He really was.
03:17 S1
Um, what happened to Aussie.
03:20 S3
Ozzy was... absolutely fantastic. He got to 12 months of age and he went in to do his... in for training, sort of testing. And then they rang and said, Oh, we're actually thinking we might breed from him, but we're going to have to do a lot more testing because his personality was great and he was a very strong, healthy dog. So they did a lot of testing on him and he was very genetically blessed. We found out... he had, you know, no hip problems, no eye problems, whatever. And so, luckily Vision Australia said to us, Oh, we're going to use him to breed from. How do you feel about that? Do you feel like hanging on to onto him? Or whatever. That was a no-brainer.
04:05 S3
We were like, yeah, of course, of course. And then, because you're in a situation that you're not entirely sure when they're going to finish breeding with them, we then sort of kept looking at each other, saying, Oh, it's going to be really hard when he goes, maybe, just maybe we'll just get one of his puppies and that way it'll it'll ease the flow.
04:26 S2
So the pain of losing....
04:27 S3
The pain of losing Ozzy and....
04:29 S2
Having one of his sons.
04:29 S3
Yeah. So we had to be a son, of course, because boy dogs. And so we ended up taking Robbie and... oh, hello Robbie. Robbie is looking up at me like, Hi! ... So we ended up taking, getting Robbie, and we absolutely loved it. And then it was just before Robbie was due to go in for training that... we got a message that they were going to take Ozzy and terminate him from the breeding program and Desexing. And we were like, Oh goodness, we've got Robbie. And then we're, luckily enough they said, we're just going to test Robbie because he comes from very strong genes. And Robbie was also very genetically blessed. So we ended up, Would you mind caring for Robbie? Yeah.
05:18 S2
So we've been really lucky that we've had two dogs. We haven't had to lose them after like 12, 14 months. We had Ozzy for nearly four years and now we've got Robbie for nearly four years. And it's just been a blessing for us, which is going to make it a lot harder, of course, when they do retire him out of the program. So but that's why we decided to take Stefan, who was going, as...
05:40 S3
Stefan who, who we did have for the 12 months. And then he luckily, he made it through training and he's graduated as a guide dog. And so, of course, to soften the blow in case we get the phone call on Robbie, we then took Jin, who's another of Robbie's sons. Yeah. And and so it keeps going. A
05:57 S2
And our first white one.
06:00 S3
And our first white one. Yes. Yes.
S1
You know, the thing that I do think is quite funny about, you know, having having Ozzy kind of finish his breeding career and then Robbie kind of coming into breeding is that he kind of did replace his dad. He did, like he did. He came along and he was like, I'm... here I am, and I'm going to take over from you, Pops, thanks very much.
06:20 S3
Yes I know. It was it was like handing over to the new guard. Yeah. So I think, I think Robbie might have just about had more puppies than Ozzy. I can't, I'm not 100% sure on that. We've lost track. We've lost track. Yes, exactly. But, hopefully they've all been successful. And if they get an ounce of Robbie's big, huggable, warm, lovey dovey, huggy bunny personality, they'll be lucky.
06:49 S1
So other than the... kind of smushy cuddliness, what are your favorite things about Robbie?
06:57 S3
Oh, Rob, he's so loyal.
06:59 S2
And his eyes. He's the most affectionate, beautiful, well-mannered. He listens. I mean, we don't have to say anything to him anymore. He just does it. I mean, I have to. He'll go out for a drink and he'll sit and he'll wait for me to say, Robbie, have a drink. I've never, ever told you not to have a drink. You can go and have a drink, but he'll sit there and he'll look up at me, because Jean always just butts in all the time now anyway. So I say, Robbie, go and have a drink, and then he'll go and have a drink, of course. But his eyes, his eyes are just a window into his soul and into ours. Because he knows exactly how we're feeling, what we're doing, what we expect of him. And it's just astonishing.
07:33 S3
He's he's incredibly loyal, dog. He I know, I know, all dogs are loyal, but but Robbie has this, um, ability of just wanting to be with you when you need him. And also, he's very protective of the younger ones that we've had with him. Not ever in an aggressive way. But if we're at the park, uh, he will. And smaller dogs come up and we've got them off lead and maybe just start to, you know, have a bit of a chat.
08:03 S2
Stefan and, genuinely took them to the park. Other dogs would all of a sudden come up to them and they were quite small. And then there'd be, you know, there are the growling at them and, and Robbie would just straight away come and kind of as...
08:14 S1
Did the little dogs are growling...
08:16 S2
And the big some of the bigger dogs, never these ones.
08:17 S3
Yeah. Never. These guys, they're just, these guys don't growl. They don't bark. They don't growl. They don't do anything. But Robbie would just, he sort of just would. He doesn't... there's no aggression. It's just kind of like, Hello? Hello. I'm you.... If you want to have a chat, come chat with me.
08:34 S2
If you could see him now, he's got his head on my lap and let's have his... doesn't he always comes up to us like that?
08:40 S3
Yeah, yeah. So we we love him, and and he's... incredibly... what do people say when we meet people? They will say, Oh, my goodness, that dog. He's just he's so, so calm. Calm. And he's well mannered. Gen two not, not in that. I'm, I've been trained to be obedient. Wait. You can just feel he's got that empathy. Robbie has great empathy. That's what we're looking for, isn't it?
09:07 S1
And he's. He's not... not exactly throwing you too much cheek.
09:11 S3
No. Oh, my God, you rubbed up, at the... moment, if you look down, we've got two big eyes looking up at on Pete's knee and the bottom going like, Oh.
09:25 S2
I remember quite a while ago when we first got Ozzy, we were just... we were at a cafe once in Bulgaria, and there was a guy sitting next door to us with his wife, and he was checking out Robbie, Ozzy. And he said, if I can give you any advice because I come from WA, I'm a farmer and I breed kelpies... whenever you ask them to do something, try to get that eye contact with them. And after that, never. We've got, asked Ozzy and all the dogs that we've had. We've always kind of said, Look at me, look at me. And then we've told them what we expect of them, and we think it's made a big difference.
And then we watched them master dogs, and they said it was all about the Bluetooth connection, that if you can develop that Bluetooth connection with a puppy when they're young, then you've got them pet. And so with Jin, I tried to develop even more of that connection with Jin. And I've got that with now more than I've had with any of the other dogs at the start. And Jin will do anything we ask him to do. But he's still that larrikin. He's got that puppy where you just have to ask him ten times sometimes to do what you want him to do. No. It's been, it's been beautiful.
10:25 S3
You... also, Pete, it's really hilarious. Pete. The way Pete talks to the dogs,he'll say, This is Yes, and this is No. And I'm like, I don't know if they understand that, but you know what, they actually do, you know, and... it seems to work. But maybe it shouldn't. Maybe, maybe in theory, maybe the, the theory shouldn't work. But the practice, you know, you know. Dogs that...
10:48 S2
They do understand you, don't they. They really do. I mean, I know that Jin and Robbie know what we're asking them to do, darling.
10:55 S3
Yes we do. Yeah, we do, but then we've been given exceptionally fabulous dogs to look after. We've been I think we've been very blessed as well with the dogs that we've managed to receive. So it's not it's all in the training. It's all in the training. It's all in the care. Yes. Yeah.
11:13 S1
What is the kind of typical day in the life with you guys and Robbie?
11:17 S2
Early morning. Get up. Oh, no, no. Look, we could leave him until 8:30, 9:00 some mornings without going out and doing their jobs. But I normally start work at 7, 7:30. He will go to work quite early, so it's normally a toilet stop at between 7 and 7:30. But if we get the chance to sleep in, they're quite happy. All of a sudden you might hear a bit of a rumble from them and I'll just say, Guys, quiet!
11:38 S3
And he does. And then they'll just be quiet. They are.
11:42 S2
So it's their jobs. And then it's their, their their food. They get fed and...
11:48 S3
They have, I can't actually we couldn't tell you an unusual date because we take them everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. So there is never two days that are the same. We take them to the beach. We take them to the park. We take them to the hairdresser, we take them to the cinema. So basically, whatever our days are, one of the probably the most usual things they do. They come for coffee with us every day. And sometimes that's in town. I work in town and Pete will bring the dogs in. We all go in together. We have three mornings every week. We have coffee three mornings a week. They've got their own little fan club, at the coffee shop. And, people know their names. They're like, Oh, Jim's gotten so big. And then we, and then Pete will bring them home. Sometimes he if he's not working, he takes them to the park. It's, I'll take them.
12:44 S2
To the park every single day. Pretty much. Try to. Yeah, I try to.
12:47 S3
So today Pete said they've had such an amazing run the last couple of days. I think we'll give them a bit of a break. You know, you also don't want to. Um. Well, you say wear them out. It's pretty impossible. Yeah.
12:58 S1
Yeah, some some dogs. It might be easier than others, but I feel like there's maybe just a little bit of energy in, yes...
13:06 S2
Oh, yes. There is a lot of energy with these dogs, so they're always looking. They've got some toys and they'll sit there with their toy in their mouth saying, Can we go out the back? Can you, you know, let us, you know, have a bit of a romp around outside. And so we're always happy to do that, aren't we, darling?
13:20 S3
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So work around us too. Yeah, definitely.
13:24 S1
So how would you kind of describe their relationship then?
13:29 S2
With each.
13:29 S3
Other?
13:30 S1
With each other? Yeah.
13:31 S2
Oh, amazing. Yeah.
13:33 S3
People often will say to us, do they. Oh they just do. They know. And we're like, well no, they don't know that their relationship per se. However, um, I think that there's some sort of affinity. Uh, interestingly enough, when we first of all got gin, Robbie was, he was good with him, but he wasn't all over him.
13:53 S2
Excited like Ozzy was with Robbie.
13:55 S3
Yeah, yeah. Whereas when we first got Stephan, who was number three, Robbie was really happy to have him. But now they're just like best of mates. You can't they they it's almost like they're conjoined. You know, they both run together. They both run here. There is a bit of argy bargy sometimes at night because Robbie is sleeps on just a mat. Jin is in the crate and but Jin, has... issues that he wants the bed at night. So when we're watching TV, he sits on the bed, and then you suddenly turn around, and Robbie's gone and put himself in the crate because he's got nowhere to lie. So there's a there's a little bit of, you know, chest thumping and beating goes on.
But Robbie is so kind. He always gives in to Jin. He waits for Jin to finish having a drink. Before he has a drink, he lets Jin take the toy. When we go down to the beach, we have a toy that we throw into the water. Robbie bounds into the water. Time and time and time again Jin will go in, but not nowhere near as much as Robbie. And then Robbie brings it back, drops it at Jin's feet. So Jin picks the toy up and then bounces up to us as if he got it. You know he's...
15:09 S1
Okay. I did the work.
15:11 S3
I did the work. Exactly. But Robbie is so kind. He's. He always... even right now, they're having a little bit of a wrestle here. And he always likes Jin.
15:19 S2
They always do. Quietly.
15:20 S3
Yeah, we've told them. No noise, no noise. They think that if they make no noise and wrestle, we don't notice.
15:26 S1
Yeah, they can continue doing it if it's quiet.
15:29 S3
Yeah.
15:30 S2
And Robbie's.. he just, he will stay on his mat the whole night, and he won't move until we come downstairs in the morning.
15:37 S3
We don't have, we don't have a camera on him. Oh, yeah. But we know that.
15:40 S2
And we can leave food anywhere around the house. Which we don't, of course, but they will never, ever touch food.
15:45 S3
Never touch food. If we... left food out. Cat food.
15:48 S2
In the.. they never went and had the cat food.
15:50 S1
Really? See the cat food is the cat food is the only one that I've had. If it's been left on the floor, I've come into my mom's house. The dogs are like, oh, food on the floor. That must be for us. It's kibble, you know.
16:02 S3
Right from the start with Jin.
16:03 S2
It was No, darling. And he did try it a couple of times. And it was, you know, firm with him, but in the right kind of way. And then after that...
16:10 S3
You heard a lot of This is. Yes. This is. No, this is. Yes. This is no. They're so smart. They pick it up.
S1
Really?
S3
It's the consistency, isn't it? It's all you have to do is be completely consistent the whole time. And then they they work it out and they, they want, they want to please. Especially Robbie. Robbie really wants to please. He's. We sometimes say you're a bit of a suck because oh he's like, Hh, I'm always trying to do the right thing. But that's what makes him so endearing.
16:41 S1
Yeah, I mean, I and I imagine maybe Jin's got just a little bit of his mother's sass.
16:47 S3
Just a little back foot in his mouth. Yes. He has a lot of sass, yeah, a lot of sass. So clearly that's a spell. Yeah. That's ours.
16:59 S1
So is there anything that you think that people, you know, I guess might not know or would be surprised about... caring for stud dogs?
17:08 S3
I think, look, honestly, it's such a privilege. It's very easy to... care for them because we... get enormous support from Vision Australia. But also, we feel that, of course, you've usually had that dog, hopefully for a year we've been in the lucky position of taking a puppy and then on to being a breeder carer. And the only real obligation on us is obviously to keep apart from keeping him healthy and his weight under control and things like that is to be available to bring him in when he's needed.
17:46 S2
Yeah, but also to follow the guidelines.
17:47 S3
That, oh yeah, we, we so...
17:49 S2
We completely...
17:49 S3
Treat him like a dog in training.
17:51 S2
And there's a there's such a fine line between letting them be a puppy and your own dog, but then remembering that they're not our dog and that we're doing such an important job for Vision Australia for somebody, hopefully that because we've had them for that year and we've done what's been asked of us, that there's a good chance that they'll become a guide dog. And it's so easy just to fall in love with them and not be disciplined and get them to do the right thing, because they're just such beautiful dogs. And when they're puppies, even Jin now is eight months old. He's still a puppy. He just he wants to do things, and we can't let him do those things. And that's where there's a fine line where you just have to be firm with them. And we've both done that really well.
18:36 S3
And as a breeder, as having a breeding dog as well, for us, we've just kept those guidelines up 100%. So again, he never goes anywhere without his jacket. He comes everywhere with us. He's not allowed on furniture. Really careful. All of those things.
18:52 S2
That we've that we've given them, we've we only give them a certain amount of treats like they can have a carrot. They love peanut butter and cheese. They're three, you know, treats that we really ever give them. Works wonders.
19:02 S3
Yeah. The peanut butter and the cheese. Yeah.
19:05 S1
They'll kind of do anything for you. Even recall from a beach. If you've got a if you've got cheese.
19:10 S3
Totally. 100%.
19:13 S1
So is there anything that... someone caring for or signing up to kind of care for a breeding dog? I'm gonna start that again because I worded that terribly. If there was someone considering caring for a breeding dog or signing up for it, would you have any advice or anything to consider?
19:31 S3
Nothing to do specifically with a breeding dog. But to answer the question that you get asked constantly, as in, how do you give them up? That we, Pete and I have come to the conclusion in the, that we have sadness, but we have no sorrow, and that is going to apply to us, whether it's a puppy or a breeding dog. So if you sign up to look after a breeding dog and you have it for two years, maybe, which is going to obviously be a year longer than the puppy, you might think it's twice the pain, but it's, we always know that the dog is going on to do something extraordinary, and you're, of course, you cry the whole way home when you've dropped them off. And then you come home but usually say, Here, here's another one. So if you want it, if you want it, there's another one.
There's nothing really regarding having a breeding dog that is different to having a puppy in terms of responsibilities or anything. I think, it's probably just, again, having that... ability to explain over and over and over again why this dog is four years old and still wearing a jacket, and because everyone's like, Yes, actually, that's one thing. Everyone's like, It's a very big dog for a puppy. And we're like...
20:57 S2
And don't get tempted to have, you know, two because it's so much easier.
21:01 S3
Yeah.
21:03 S1
I agree with that. I will be honest.
21:06 S3
Uh, well, now there's a, there's a... It's like World War. It's like, you know, what is it the World Wrestling Federation going on. Yeah. Jin.
21:16 S1
Silent WWE.
21:18 S3
WWE. See Pete just said Jin, be steady. And they just stopped. No. Okay. All right. Time over. You know, time out, time out. Hey, Rob. So. Yeah. So unfortunately, I can't give you anything specific.
21:31 S1
I mean, it's amazing just to think about. And I guess for anyone who's kind of considering, yeah, looking to puppy or breeder caring, sounds like they probably should.
21:41 S3
Absolutely. With breeder caring, you know, obviously they're not going to have a dog that they're going to have to deal with the puppy stage. You're going to get an extremely well trained and very... well schooled dog because the puppy care has... done that for you. Yeah. So if you take a breeder a dog to become a breeder carer, then you can't say the hard yards are done because you still have to be strict and run with the rules, but you're not having to deal with that puppy side. So it's going to suit people very much who desperately want to get involved in the program, but don't feel that they can actually deal with a puppy.
Yeah. And but still want to give back, but sort of think, I just don't think I could do a puppy. Which is a lot of people and also people who work full time, that that would be a brilliant solution because the dogs are now settled, they're trained. They'd be absolutely 100% to be in an office all day. So I think definitely become a breeder carer if you want to get involved in the program, but you don't feel the confidence, or you feel you can commit the time to doing the actual puppy raising.
22:56 S1
And just to finish off, is there anything else that you'd like to share about, you know, your time with Robbie, volunteering or about stud dogs?
23:03 S3
Best thing we've ever done. We...
23:06 S2
We're going to continue to do it.
23:06 S3
We're going to continue doing it. We feel... .
23:09 S2
Probably get tempted to take two, but we're hoping that we're going to be strong enough just to say No, one's enough.
23:15 S3
The, we had just Robbie for about three weeks and we kept looking at each other, going, Oh my God, this is so easy. This is so easy.
23:23 S2
And then, of course, we saw the photos of Robbie's litter of pups. And then I just for some reason, I just got attracted to Jinky. And normally they never let you have the dog. So I actually requested Jinky. And then he said, Darling, you can't do that. You won't get it.
23:36 S3
You're volunteering, you don't get, you do - that's the point of volunteering. It was a special moment.
23:40 S2
Going there and getting Jinky, wasn't it? Was. Yeah, it really was.
23:43 S1
Because so did you actually not do the requesting? But it just happened to be that way.
23:47 S3
No, he did a lot of hinting a lot.
23:51 S2
I called, I remember, I remember calling Mark straight away saying, Mark, he's talked. You know how we said we'd only want to do one? Well, I've just seen the latest breed. Can we do, have another one? And I want to have a white one if possible. And I want Jinky, and Mark said, I'll see what I can do. So we were probably...
24:07 S3
Like, yeah, one dog done.
24:09 S1
Yes I know he's like, he's like two of the litter out. And then the rest of them just kind of go bang, bang, bang after that. You know? That's how it works.
24:16 S3
Yeah, I can imagine. But we, no, just we would wholeheartedly recommend - you get so much joy back. You will never, ever, ever be lonely if you become a puppy carer or a breeder carer because you get, you cannot sit down and have a coffee, without somebody talking to you about it. I mean, it is brilliant. It's, it's that's not...
24:39 S2
Single guys take note.
24:40 S3
Yes. Yeah. They're a bit of a chick magnet, the dogs. We would highly recommend it. It's... the most rewarding program. You do have to be prepared to almost be a bit of an ambassador for Vision Australia, because you're constantly talking about the program.
24:58 S2
And sometimes you feel like saying, Can I just read my paper and drink my coffee, please, without people coming up and saying, Excuse me, you know... but you don't, but of course not. No. We always chat with them. Yeah, always.
25:09 S3
But, yeah, you, as I said, you'll never be lonely. And you... have to be a bit of an ambassador. But you, we talk to people about all aspects of it. You know, if people say to us, Oh, I'd love to do it, but I don't feel like I'll give up the dog or whatever, and we'll talk to them and say, Well, you know, you can always do foster caring. You could always do some volunteer work in the kennels. We try to expand it and sort of say, This is... not just your only option to... try and give back. So there we go.
25:38 S1
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about your experiences. And... again, for caring for, yeah, the dogs that you've had in your care.
25:49 S3
Yeah, it's my pleasure. Very lucky. And we thank Vision Australia for giving us the opportunity as well.
25:53 S2
And all the support that, yeah, the support we get as well.
25:56 S3
Fantastic.
25:57 S2
Yeah. It's been incredible.
26:04 S1
You've been listening to the Seeing Eye Dogs Show on Vision Australia Radio. I hope you enjoyed learning about Robbie and his life and my interview with Hilary and Peter.
Our wonderful breeding dogs are selected from the best of our puppy program, and they require a loving home full time for the duration of their breeding career, and they return to Seeing Eye Dogs facility in Kensington, Victoria for breeding activities. Our male and female breeding dogs need homes from about 12 months of age, and could be in the program for a few months to a number of years, depending on the dog. We're now looking for breeder carers in parts of Victoria that are listed on our website at sed.visionaustralia.org forward slash volunteer forward slash breeding hyphen dog.
We are also open for applications now for young people who are blind or have low vision to take part in our 2025 Seeing Eye Dogs Youth Program. People from 12 to 18 who are interested in finding out about dog guide mobility and enhance their skills can work with their O&M and asking dog staff to work on their O&M skills and find out what life is like with the Seeing Eye Dogs, including an immersive camp where you get to take care of your own Seeing Eye dog. Applications for the 2025 Youth Program are open now, so head to our website to find out more at SED dot Vision Australia dot org forward slash youth hyphen program. You can email Brooke at Brooke Anderson at Vision Australia dot org or you can call Seeing Eye Dogs on 1800 037 773.
Thank you for listening to the Seeing Eye Dogs Show. Don't forget to tune in, same time next week for another episode.
