Like 96 per cent of people who are visually impaired, Tiffany Deacon can still see a bit. “I can see you have a dark top on and the light flashing on your ring,” she says.

She can also see that Iris, her guide dog, is ‘a very pale yellow’ but can she see the light in Iris’s eyes when Tiffany speaks to her? It is of such pure and total devotion that it makes me want to cry.

Tiffany lost her sight over a period of years, after being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa.

“To be honest, when I was first diagnosed, because it was picked up by the optician at the early stages, it didn’t mean anything at all,” she says.

“My answer was ‘I haven’t got a visual impairment’.”

A few years down the line, though, and she couldn’t see her Christchurch home in the dark or read properly or continue with the work she trained for and the subject of a guide dog was raised by social services.

“Basically they said they couldn’t do much more for me,” she says.

Asking for a guide dog is the easy bit.

“They come round for an assessment and do a short walk around the block with you,” says Tiffany.

“Then there’s lots of chat and paperwork.”

As she is the Eye Clinic Support Officer for the Dorset Blind help desk at Bournemouth Eye Unit, her dog would have to be able to cope with lots of colleagues and members of the public milling about. Finding a suitable hound took 16 months.

“In a way it’s like computer dating,” says Tiffany.

“All your and the dog’s details are fed into a computer and that helps find you the best match.”

And meeting your dog for the first time is definitely like a first date.

“You wonder what you’ll think of each other; will you get on?” she says.

Iris arrived on a rainy October afternoon and accompanied Tiffany and the Guide Dogs official on a short walk. Even though she had been told what to expect, Tiffany was amazed. “I told Iris to find the road crossing and she did.”

However: “It isn’t magic; you have to know there is a crossing or a bus stop so you can tell them the right things. It was quite moving though, as I just didn’t know a dog could do all that.”

Iris was returned to her boarder and a few weeks later Tiffany went on the two-week residential course in Southampton.

“Because they don’t want you to be distracted you stay in a hotel and just work and bond with your dog,” she says.

But aren’t the dogs unsettled to be away from their previous handlers?

“We’re taught how to bond and they said that as soon as I started feeding her I’d go up in her estimation and that was true.”

Further training included learning how to care for Iris, learning to pick up poo: “If we can do it so can everyone!” and Iris accompanied Tiffany to work where she now sits faithfully under the desk.

“She likes protecting my feet and is such a loyal dog.”

But, for Tiffany, the moment of truth came when they embarked on their first night walk together.

“It was very emotional,” says Tiffany.

“It did touch me because I can’t see in the dark and to think I’m just telling her to go to a kerb, or go to the right and she is the one who is seeing everything.”

It was at that point, she says: “I realised it was her and me.”

Now they go everywhere together and Iris is frequently the centre of attention. “Of course people want to make a fuss of her but what they may not realise is that when her harness is up it means she’s working and mustn’t be distracted,” says Tiffany.

If Iris loses concentration it could mean that either Tiffany is left in a dangerous position or that in her workplace she could collide with someone who is frail or partially-sighted themselves.

Either way the rules are this: harness on means the dog is working and should only be addressed by its owner. If the dog-lead is on it’s still correct to talk to the dog’s owner before speaking to the dog but, as Tiffany points out, this is just good manners.

She gives this clever example of the working part Iris plays in her life. “If you were in a cafe and put your mobile phone on the table and a total stranger picked it up and started playing with it, what would you feel?” she asks. “You might feel annoyed because it’s not their phone to play with and Iris is the same; I’ve been given her to use in a business-like fashion.”

However, Iris can be a great ice-breaker at Tiffany’s workplace where her job is to support people who have been diagnosed with sight loss, some of whom can feel that their world is ending.

“It’s our place to let them know all the help and support that’s available” and, says Tiffany, there is masses which can be suited to the client’s lifestyle.

As an advert for just getting on with it, she and Iris are sublime. And if you have ever wondered if dogs really are man’s best friend, one look into Iris’s gentle brown eyes tells you everything you need to know.

  • dorsetblind.org.uk, guidedogs.org.uk