Hillie’s Gift

A Memoir of Australia’s First Rural Guide Dog Owner

With deteriorating eyesight in her teens, Western Australian farmgirl Hillie Schell ventured out of the wheat fields and cow sheds of her childhood home in Goomalling and headed off to the Big Smoke, the cities of Perth then Adelaide, to undergo treatments.

By the time she returned, she had lost all sight.

What followed was a life of both hardship and beauty, made easier by the introduction of the guide dog movement to Australia. Cleo, a gentle Labrador, became the first country guide dog in the southern hemisphere, learning to contend with horses, firecrackers and hardened sceptics as well as typical guiding duties.

Compiled by Jenny Byatt.