Campaign for guide dog puppy carers

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association is appealing for puppy walkers in Rochdale.

Volunteers are needed for the full-time care and education of the guide dog pups from six weeks until approximately 12 to 14 months of age, when they are returned to the charity to begin specialised guide dog training.

Jane Hill, Guide Dogs’ puppy walking supervisor, said: “We’re looking for enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers who can care for the pups full-time because at the end of the day, if we don’t have puppy walkers we don’t have guide dogs.

“Puppy walking is challenging and it is a real commitment to take a puppy in to your home for a year but with the support of Guide Dogs staff, our volunteers find it extremely rewarding and worthwhile.

"A young guide dog puppy is a full-time companion for its temporary owners, who find it so rewarding to raise a dog who will one day give a blind person a new independence by acting as their eyes."

Guide Dogs supplies basic equipment and covers all veterinary and feeding expenses. To become a puppy walker, volunteers will need to have access to a car. They will have to be home for most of the day, and free to take their puppy into many varied environments – sometimes busy and difficult. Their yard or garden will also need to be securely fenced so that the puppy remains safely within its confines.

The young dogs will spend much of their first year of life living with the puppy walker volunteers in their home; they will teach them basic obedience and get them used to a home environment, noise and the bustle of towns. They will prepare the pup for their working life ahead which includes taking them on trains and buses.

For more information about volunteering for the charity as a puppy walker, call Guide Dogs’ on 0845 371 7771 or email volunteer@guidedogs.org.uk

Visit: www.guidedogs.org.uk/puppywalking