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04/07/2025

Miniature Poodle Reggie had a wonderful time strutting his way through the Botanical Gardens last week💐🐾

Reggie and his handler attended the Botanical Gardens as a part of their in person hours - did you know that as an aspect of our Owner Training pathway, our partnerships attend a minimum of 50 training hours? This can be filled in a variety of ways - from training walks, to group training or even 1-1 sessions.

These hours in person enable trainers to truly know our partnerships inside and out as individuals, meaning that we can then support the partnership in the best way possible for them🐩

Image Description: A close up shot of Reggie, a black Miniature Poodle. Reggie is looking up to the right, where his handler is cueing him to focus. He is sat facing the camera, wearing his neon orange Assistance Dog vest in front of a display of bright pink and neon orange flowers - the colours compliment Reggie's gear.

20/06/2025

In recent weeks as the academic year comes to a close, many of our partnerships have been on celebratory outings to novel locations such as the Theatre 🎭🐾

We would like to congratulate Labrador Fig and her handler on a successful trip to the theatre to see 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow'. The show featured a variety of incredible special effects such as pyrotechnics, loud bangs, and even actors within the audience - an excellent opportunity for Fig to show off her confident and relaxed nature🐕‍🦺

Labrador Robin also experienced a West End theatre performance this past weekend, attending 'The Lightening Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical' where she gladly demonstrated her excellent napping skills - even sleeping through a malfunctioning bubble machine! She was a wonderful support to her handler; helping her to navigate the theatre, creating space from crowds, and retrieving items with great enthusiasm 🫧

Golden Retriever Ralph attended a performance of 'Six The Musical' with his handler. We were pleased to hear how much Ralph enjoyed this trip, alongside the compliments he received from staff for his impeccable theatre etiquette as well as on his vital medical alerts 🦮

A huge well done to all our our handlers and dogs for navigating such challenging and novel environments, as well as a big thank you to all of the incredible theatre staff who have been so supportive towards our partnerships 🐾

Image description:

1. Fig, a chocolate Labrador sits in front of a 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' poster politely outside of a theatre. She is facing the camera, wearing her neon orange working vest, collar and lead.
2. Robin, a black Labrador sits to the bottom left of the image gazing into the camera. She is sat on the floor of a beautifully decorated auditorium, with colour themes of a rich red and gold patterned along the flooring and chairs. Actors can be seen on stage from a distance behind Robin.
3. Ralph, a Golden Retriever sits sideways on a theatre staircase - he turns his head towards the camera, looking smart in his neon orange working vest.

09/06/2025

We would like to congratulate Assistance Dog Sunny, who recently attended a show at a West End theatre for the very first time 🦮🎭

Sunny had a very successful trip to see 'The Great Gatsby' with her handler, and her favourite aspect of the visit was getting some much needed nap-time in whilst her handler enjoyed the show 😴🐾

Thank you to the wonderful staff and team at the London Coliseum for being so supportive and accommodating towards assistance dog partnerships🐕‍🦺

01/06/2025

Lovely Delila, enjoying a day out in the city with her handler this week🦮

Image Description: Delila, a Spaniel Mix is tucked under her handlers' legs whilst on a busy tube. The background of the image has a slight blur, showing various people seated on the tube behind Delila - who is gazing up at the camera maintaining a slight head tilt, her neon orange harness just visible under her silky coat.

23/05/2025

Assistance dog Tigger demonstrating his excellent impulse control around tempting freshly baked bread and pastries 🐾🥐

Fresh food aisles in supermarkets can be one of the most challenging distractions for dogs - especially the meat, and open food aisles like Tigger is showcasing here🦮

Image description: Tigger, a rich dark red coloured Irish Setter sits in front of the bakery section in a supermarket gazing up towards the camera. He maintains a relaxed and inquisitive facial expression, and wears his orange Assistance Dog vest.

16/05/2025

Assistance Dog Ralph had a wonderful experience attending a recent local dog show 🐾

02/05/2025

Sunny and her handler recently visited us here in Wales during a break from University - she is doing wonderfully with her training, and thoroughly enjoyed picking out a souvenir from her Welsh holiday 🐑🐾

Image description: Sunny, a golden retriever assistance dog in training is laid down on a shop floor calmly, next to her new Welsh souvenir - a toy sheep🐑. She gazes off to the right of the camera at her handler, and is wearing a smart black biothane lead with her Wild Spirit Canines CIC vest.

26/04/2025

Something we pride ourselves on as an organisation is the range of environments we access to provide our dogs with appropriate exercise and off duty experiences - we are privileged to be based in South Wales which is full of beautiful walking locations.

Our dogs enjoy exploring all sorts of locations when they are off-duty, including:

🐾 Local beaches
🐾 Forests
🐾 Farmland
🐾 Enclosed fields
🐾 Parks
🐾 Dog-safe lakes
🐾 Urban city environments, and more!

This helps with ensuring our dogs' physical condition is excellent during their training and placement with supporting joint health, muscle growth, agility and stamina.

The variety in locations (and therefore experience) also supports ongoing socialisation which is vital for assistance dogs, contributes to mental stimulation and supports working towards Public Access Tests in future, where there is an assessment section focused towards off-duty behaviour criteria.

Image description: 5 dogs trot alongside a handler in an enclosed field. From left to right - an adolescent Golden Retriever wearing a pink harness, and Labrador in a burgundy harness heel to the left of the handler. To the right, 2 young Goldadors stand in blue and green harnesses, with a beautiful miniature poodle sat between them, poised in preparation to retrieve a ball.

21/04/2025

Assistance dog Tigger hopes everybody had a wonderful Easter weekend🐰🐾

13/04/2025

Summer, our original Demonstration, Stooge and Assistance dog has been working hard recently training up our most recent intake of Volunteers🐕‍🦺

Whilst many of our new Volunteer Assistance Dog Trainers may be established Dog Trainers, they may not have had assistance dog specific experience. As the first step in their journey, many of our Volunteer Assistance Dog Trainers handle Summer - as a skilled and experienced assistance dog, Summer demonstrates what handling a fully trained assistance dog should feel like, all whilst highlighting our expectations for the conduct and behaviour of our fully trained assistance dogs.

This also allows Volunteers to develop their skills in terms of managing public interactions whilst training, including practising answering questions about training assistance dogs! Summer is also able to demonstrate all of the tasks we train, giving individuals the chance to experience the support of taskwork in a variety of environments.

Our main focus when supporting Volunteer Assistance Dog Trainers varies dependent on individual preference, but many set goals relating to career progression, developing assistance dog specific knowledge, and development of handling skills.

Once Volunteers’ have a good understanding of our high standards for fully trained assistance dogs (supported by handling Summer and other demonstration dogs) they will have the opportunity to work 1-1 with our young assistance dogs in training, all whilst benefiting from mentoring and shadowing opportunities with our support and guidance.

Image description - Summer, a Golden Retriever is stood facing the camera in a shop aisle. She looks alert, with a relaxed facial expression and is wearing a white and orange guide harness. Her handler stands next to her, holding the guide handle on her harness.

02/04/2025

Multipurpose assistance dog Ralph greatly enjoyed showing off his taskwork to members of the public whilst out supporting his handler.

Day to day, Ralph works as an assistance dog, but he also works part time as a ‘stooge’ dog and demonstration dog - this means he is used to displaying his impressive range of tasks and cues in all environments and situations.

Stooge dogs are generally considered very experienced and exceptionally reliable dogs, who can be relied on to have a consistent response to all stimuli and situations.

For example - in the context of assistance work, a ‘stooge’ dog may be present at a younger dog’s first public access training trip as a good influence for the younger dog to echo the 'stooge' dog's behaviour and confidence via social learning.

Demonstration work can also involve a variety of activities including:

- Being worked by future assistance dog handlers so that they can experience the social impact of working an assistance dogs as well as practical taskwork.

- ⁠ Attending local events with their handlers to deliver assistance dog related education and demonstrate taskwork.

- Did you know that demonstration dogs can even be utilised to support the career development of Volunteer trainers? We are excited to share more in future weeks about how demonstration dog Summer has been supporting the career progression of our Volunteer assistance dog trainers🐕‍🦺

30/03/2025

Assistance dog Fig had a wonderful time exploring during a recent outing focusing on maintenance training.

Continuation of training and fine-tuning skills even after an assistance dog is fully trained is something we consider of great value when supporting our partnerships.

This can vary for each individual dog - for example, continually accessing more challenging environments, advancing general obedience, or fine tuning and adapting taskwork can all be examples of training opportunities that can always be utilised.

Not only is maintenance training considered vital in order to maintain the standards of training required to pass a yearly Public Access Test, but it is also a key aspect of developing an excellent working relationship between dog and handler.

We also encourage our handlers to enjoy the creative side of training upkeep with their assistance dogs - we know that techniques involved in maintenence training like free shaping have potential to progress skills such as frustration tolerance, emotional regulation and improve communication skills within dog and handler relationships even further, therefore contributing to improved canine welfare.

This can also be a great way to decompress and enjoy the company of your assistance dog - in whatever way is adaptable for the handler.

On this trip, our lovely Fig greatly enjoyed refreshing her skills when it came to ignoring distractions - we were very proud of her ability to ignore these even when at a very close distance demonstrated here with temptation alley!

What is your favourite way to enjoy maintenance training with your dog?

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