WHAT KIND OF MORON HITS A GUIDE DOG?

WHO would maltreat a guide dog? If you think the answer is nobody, then you are, very sadly, mistaken. In 2016, having accepted that my medical career was at an end, I became a fulltime campaigner and advocate for people living with disabilities.

It’s fantastic to be able to channel the energy I poured into being a doctor into such a worthwhile endeavour, and wherever I go, Kika comes too.

Mostly our journeys are trouble-free. But we have had more than our fair share of unpleasant encounters. Once, Kika stopped in the middle of a London Underground station and sat down by my feet, blocking my way and refusing to move. ‘Kika?’ I said. ‘Up.’ But nothing. As I pondered what to do next, a woman ran up to me and revealed that she’d just seen someone take a swipe at my dog with an umbrella. ‘Was it an accident?’ I asked. ‘No. They did it on purpose,’ the woman said. I could hear she was almost as shocked and angry as I was. I crouched down to reassure Kika. I couldn’t feel any injury but she was obviously shaken.

That was the day that my wife Seema and I decided to fit a camera to Kika’s harness. We could then film what happened on our regular commutes, and Seema could review the footage later. Only two days later, Seema spotted that a smartly dressed woman had lashed out at Kika with her handbag.

There have been many similar incidents. The camera has recorded people diving in front of us to get seats on trains and buses.

I decided to go public in 2018 with one of these videos. I hated the idea of guide dogs having a hard time just because they were helping humans have a better life, and I wanted to get the message out.

I chose a clip of an aggressive encounter with an angry commuter on an Underground escalator, who had asked me to move Kika because she was blocking his path and he was in a hurry. Even when I’d apologised and he was told by me and other passengers that she was a guide dog, he continued to berate me. ‘You’re holding everybody up here,’ he said.

I posted the video on the Twitter feed I run for Kika with a caption saying: ‘If you see a guide dog on an escalator, please wait patiently behind.’

Within hours, the clip had gone viral, followed by coverage in the mainstream media worldwide.

All that said, the majority of people are brilliant. Thank you to everybody who helps me when I’m travelling around.