During today’s broadcast of BBC Breakfast, Sally Nugent became very distraught as she was being consoled by her co-host Jon Kay. She had just admitted that she didn’t think she could ‘continue on’ with the programme, and she was genuinely upset by this admission.
During the programme that aired this morning, there was a piece regarding guide dogs. During this segment, the hosts explained that one of their coworkers at the BBC, Sean Dilley, was facing a two-year wait for a replacement guide dog because Sammy, his canine friend, had recently retired.
Because of the pandemic, the nonprofit organisation Guide Dogs was forced to halt its breeding and training programmes for the very first time in its history. As a result, there were fewer dogs available for people who had problems with their vision.
During the course of the discussion, a movie was presented that was about the process of training guide dogs. The video told the story of a volunteer named Lisa who worked with a puppy named Fergall.
The kind-hearted puppy raiser had to face saying goodbye to Fergall when it was time for him to go progress to advanced training, as Lisa admitted: ‘It’s hard, but you’ve got to remember why you’re doing it.’
‘The tears are worth it,’ she added, as she had a tearful goodbye with the dog.
As the cameras returned to the BBC studio, Sally appeared overwhelmed by the segment, uttering the word ‘wow’ in response to the film.
‘You alright?’ Jon asked her, to which she replied: ‘No. I don’t think I can carry on.’
Sally was able to hold back her tears and continue, during which she made the remark that it was a “amazing thing to do” to volunteer to train a guide dog knowing that at some point in the not too distant future, she would have to say goodbye to the dog she had been working with.
‘To be able to work with a dog like that, and then hand it on for the next stage of its job…’ she added.
They then went on to show photographs of other guide dogs on the television in an effort to bring some joy to the people who were watching their programme on Tuesday morning.
A couple of hours later on the programme, Jon and Sally were joined in the studio by a guide dog named Duggie.
Jon confessed to his two human guests who joined the guide dog: ‘You two do realise that nobody’s listening to a word that either of you or either of us says, we’re just all looking at beautiful Duggie.’
Duggie looked extremely relaxed in the studio, lying contently beside the red sofa.
BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One.