Businessman’s best friend gets top dog award

A BLIND businessman who travels the world seeking out extreme sport challenges yesterday lavished praise on his award-winning guide dog and declared: “He’s transformed my life.”

As Belfast-trained Larry, a Golden Retriever Labrador cross, was named the best in Britain, owner Mark Pollock, 30, told how he helped rescue him from a life of despair.

Mr Pollock, from Holywood, Co Down, has defied disability to kayak in New Zealand, run marathons at the North Pole and in China’s Gobi Desert, win Commonwealth rowing medals, bungee jump and even compete in an Ironman Triathlon in Switzerland.

But the motivational speaker and executive coach said nothing topped the thrill of his first venture out alone with Larry.

It was only a 15-minute walk from his Dublin city centre flat to the barbers at the top of Grafton Street, but he recalled: “The adrenalin rush was phenomenal.

“I was scared and overjoyed all at once. I can best describe it by saying that I was literally shaking with the feeling that I’d got my life back.”

Mr Pollock, who was born short-sighted, lost the vision in his right eye at the age of five. He was totally blinded in April 1998 after suffering another detached retina.

It was a shattering blow, coming as he was about to graduate in business studies and economics from Trinity College, Dublin and with the offer of an investment banking job in London.

Mr Pollock feared his life was effectively over at the age of 22.

Within months, however, he was matched with Larry, who has helped him realise his ambitions as a globe-trotting adventurer.

Now aged nine-and-a-half and nearing retirement, he scooped the UK’s overall Guide Dog of the Year award at the Kennel Club in London.

The award was presented by former cabinet minister David Blunkett.

Mr Pollock, who gives motivational advice and coaching at corporate and individual level to companies in Ireland, Britain, Hong Kong and Singapore, insisted the recognition was long overdue.

“Larry was key to reestablishing my confidence and my independence.

“Often it’s always about me when people talk to me, because we have just come back from the Gobi Desert or the North Pole. Larry is overlooked.

“This is an acknowledgement of how important he is to me.

“If he can go on until he is 11, that would be great.”

Mr Blunkett, who presented four awards, praised the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association for the training it provides for working in a variety of circumstances.

He said: “The confidence, mobility and independence that the dogs provide, and the tailoring of the particular skills of the dog to the needs of the owner is quite remarkable.

“I think that many of the dogs were matched by the extraordinary stories of their owners, who deserve congratulations.”