Man and his guide dog in a jam after car hits, injures canine
The owner of a guide dog struck in a downtown Victoria crosswalk is worried the dog he depends on could be too traumatized to work.
“If he’s down, I’m down,” said Brian Frank, 66, who is visually impaired due to a progressive genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa. “I can use a white cane, but it’s pretty hard. Guide dogs do all the hard work.”
Frank was headed east on Fort Street toward the Royal Bank, across Douglas Street, at about 1:30 p.m. on Thursday when a driver ran a red light, striking a female pedestrian and Frank’s dog, Cody.
Neither suffered life-threatening injuries.
Frank said he heard the beeping of the traffic signal indicating it was time to cross and felt another pedestrian step onto Douglas Street. He had just stepped off the curb when he heard screaming and felt a tug on the leash he was holding.
“The car was headed south on Douglas, so he ran the red light,” Frank said. “Apparently, he was going to park just past the intersection. He was right by the curb.”
Frank, who was confused and disoriented by the commotion, said: “The lady went down and I just stood there.” All he could see was two shadowy figures on the ground.
“When someone says ‘look out’ to a blind person, what are you supposed to do — because you can’t look, right?” said Frank, a retired mediator. “I wasn’t even sure what was going on. I just knew something tugged Cody to the right and then he was down on the ground.”
Seven-year-old Cody, a standard poodle, hit his head and sustained slight injuries to his neck and one paw, “but he’s going to be OK,” Frank said. He said Victoria police “were so great” and took him and his dog to a veterinarian.
“Physically he’s OK but he’s been pretty traumatized. We’ll have to see over the next week or so,” Frank said of his dog. “He couldn’t even stand he was trembling so bad.”
He plans to talk further with the veterinarian and look into therapy for Cody in the hope he recovers.
A guide dog afraid of traffic can’t work, Frank said. Finding a replacement could take months: Frank is allergic to most dogs, but standard poodles do not cause him problems.
“It could take another year,” he said. “It’s harder to get a poodle.”
He said he had to wait 16 months to get Cody, his third guide dog, from a company he deals with in the United States. He’s had Cody for five years.
Frank is in the midst of moving. His new condominium allows only service dogs so he assumes if Cody can’t work, he might have to give the dog to his daughter.
“Cody has already had a bit of a rough time,” he said. During a trip in August to the Philippines, where Frank runs a small nonprofit, Cody licked a poisonous frog and had seizures, Frank said. “He almost died from that.”
Amy Frank said she can’t imagine what the scene was like for her father and Cody.
“He wasn’t hit, but he’s pretty shaken up,” she said. “Because he’s blind, he couldn’t see anything and all of a sudden everyone is screaming around him and I can’t imagine how hard that would be to not really know what is happening.
“He heard the woman plunk to the ground and with limited vision all he could see were shapes on the ground.”
She is equally worried for Cody, who was trembling and given medication to sleep on Thursday. She said their experience should be a reminder to all drivers to take extra time and be cautious.
Victoria police said the driver was given a ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian and failing to stop at a red light at an intersection.