17/08/2026
Guide Dog Blogs: Boston & Toby 💖
You might recognise Toby as one of the on-air voices here at RNIB Connect Radio, but did you know that he has a guide dog?
Lovely Boston was matched with Toby last year and has proven to be a wonderful companion ever since.
Hubert: Now let's talk about Boston, of course. What's he like? What have you discovered about him as a character, as a personality?
Toby: Well, he's a lot longer than Willow, my previous guide dog. And he's a bit bigger as well, because that certainly came really home when we were sort of finding the button boxes on post for the crossings here.
Normally with Willow, she would just stand beside the button box and the post and I'll just put my hand out to the left or right and there it would be whilst with Boston because he's a bit longer I had to almost… When he stopped, had to take two paces along his body, follow his head and then find the button boxes. So that took a bit of time. sort of getting used to.
And he's obviously a very young dog, he's a boy, it's the first boy dog I've had, so that sort of makes things different in some ways. He's very enthusiastic, he loves, you know, sort of finding the button boxes, finding the curb, stopping, and funnily enough, when he's doing like a route first time, he's so excited and he almost does a sort of emergency stop, like you would do with a car kind of thing.
He'll just stop straight by the post and I have to be ever so careful that I don't carry on following him and not quite hit my head on the post, but he does stop quite abruptly on routes that he's doing for the first time when he finds things.
He loves his toys you know when we're at home and he's got a bag full of all his toys and he'll get his toys out and throw them around the room and stuff like that. He's a real character and I think, although it has taken a long time since my last dog retired and I have been waiting quite a bit, I think guide dogs have certainly made a really good choice with Boston for me.
Hubert: Now apart from throwing his toys all over the place like a teenager in the house, has Boston got any particularly funny habits that particularly amuse you?
Toby: Funny things, sort of relates back to being a bit like a teenager. He’ll be down in my living room. He's got a big bed there and he's got all his toys. But sometimes he will take himself up and at the top of my stairs, because it goes around the corner, there's a big triangular step, carpeted step, which he just likes going up, lying in that bit.
I think it's maybe because he's higher up and he can see what's going on and he can see the front door and stuff. It's quite funny because he occasionally takes himself off up there and I'm thinking, okay, or he'll take himself up into my office, come second bedroom, come study, come what have you, where he's got a bed here and he'll come and take himself up there. So maybe being a little bit like a teenager taking himself off to his room and going to sleep.
Hubert: Now when it comes to working Boston, any particular skills during his work that he excels at?
Toby: Like many of the guide dogs and many of my previous guide dogs, one of the fantastic things is his ability to be able to do a route once and then be able to do it again. And that's just so refreshing to experience because once he's learned a route, once he's done it once, you know he can do it again and he'll go back to the same place, he'll stop at the same place. And it's funny that there's places where he will stop, it's time for biscuits, I've stopped at the curb. And that's really, really interesting and good and really reassuring.
We love Boston and Toby, but what's your guide dog like? Share below!
Image 1: Toby smiles as he poses for a photo with Boston inside an office space. Toby is sitting down and Boston is next to him, his harness under a chair, just relaxing. Boston is a lovely light-coloured Labrador Retriever with slightly darker brown colours on his ears and around his nose.
Image 2: A close up on Boston's cute little face as he sits next to Toby.
Image 3: Toby and guide dog Boston pose for a photo outside with a dramatic view of river Thames, the London Eye and Palace of Westminster behind them.
