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After months of preparation, Vaughan Roles and his Seeing Eye Dog Scooter are heading off on an exciting adventure. They’re taking part in Trek For Vision New Zealand, a 60km trek of the Queen Charlotte Track and Wellington City fundraising for Vision Australia Radio and Telelink programs.
Vaughan is a lawyer, father, keen adventurer and Seeing Eye Dog handler. He’s working with Seeing Eye Dog Scooter, a four-year-old black Labrador Golden Retriever cross.
Vaughan recently joined Harriet on the Seeing Eye Dogs Show to discuss their preparation for the trek.
Preparing for the Trek
Whilst they usually frequent busier urban environments and courtrooms, the pair have been working on their skills, navigating more rough and challenging terrain- even becoming familiar with kayaking.
“You need to get behind me because we need to raise some money. That's the bottom line. I'm going to try and provide you with something that gives you an incentive to do it. So, there's an Instagram page called Vaughan.Adventures (https://www.instagram.com/vaughan.adventures/). You can follow that on Instagram. There's a YouTube channel called Scooter_Cam (https://www.youtube.com/@scooter_cam). What we're putting on there is various videos of his training and I'll be posting track videos.
“Telelink services are incredibly important for people who lose their sight. If you put yourself in the position of someone who's lost their sight trying to fathom how your life is going to operate, and what you can manage. The idea that you can connect with other blind people who can talk you through that, I think is really important.”
Why support Vaughn?
When asked about incentives for people's donations, we must admit that Vaughn makes a strong case.
“Scooter and I are the team you should sponsor because we're giving you something back. We're giving you a free little dog clips in return for your donation.”
To hear about Vaughan and Scooter’s partnership, life and their trek preparation stream the podcast in full:
You can find out more about their trip preparation and support them by heading to their Trek for Vision fundraising page by clicking here, or watch some of their preparation and the trek on YouTube on their channel @Scooter_cam by clicking here, or follow their adventures on Instagram @vaughan.adventures by clicking here.