Canine Partners

What a week we’ve had! It all started off with Pedal for Paws, our very first proper in-house cycle challenge, where over 100 keen cyclists joined us at our Centre in West Sussex. The more serious cyclists arrived at crack of dawn, as they had a daunting 52 mile ride ahead of them, across the undulating Sussex countryside. (It’s fair to say that our riders’ definition of ‘undulating’ probably changed a bit by the time they had returned, happy but exhausted). Next to set off were our intrepid 29 milers, taking a different route in order to cut down the distance, but still enjoying the same Sussex hills! And finally our 16 milers brought up the rear.

It was wonderful to see so many excited faces, and to hear the lovely comments as people returned a few hours later, having had a great time and also had the satisfaction of raising money for such a worthy cause. Everyone had the opportunity to meet some of our dogs and partners as we were joined at the finish line by Martin & cp Keith, Sally & cp Ethan and Alan & cp Hamlin. These events take a lot of organising, with volunteer marshals and stewards at various places along the route. We are very grateful for their help. We were slightly less grateful to the person who removed one of our ‘arrow signs’ at an important crossroads, which caused a few cyclists to go feral and have to be rounded up! But everyone was soon back on track and happily continuing their ride. Big thanks to Sian for organising the whole day.

Our next excitement was the gathering of our volunteer demonstration team at our Midlands Centre on Tuesday, together with their various ‘demo dogs’, who do so much to raise awareness of our work across the UK. Volunteers Ali and Sue organised the day and were delighted to have such wonderful attendance from all over the UK, including Danny & cp demo dog Heston from Scotland.

My own week saw me making the trip to our Midlands Centre on Wednesday, to catch up with our puppy classes there. This meant that I watched as Julia led the class, with pups Amira, Brodie, Cedar, Della, Hugo, Monty, Nemo, Netti and Oxley in attendance, and their puppy parents teaching them various things, depending on the specific class they were allocated to. I can’t possibly tell you all about each and every pup, but suffice to say that we have a whole range of different four-pawed characters here who are going to end up bringing a lot of enjoyment to their future partners once they complete their training. In particular we wish Amira and Brodie luck as they enter the next stage of training on Monday, leaving puppy parents Kenni and Paul with tears in their eyes.

From there I continued on to our Staffordshire puppy satellite, where Heather leads the classes. I joined in a special Hallowe’en class where our pups got used to people wearing various Hallowe’en costumes while the sound of fireworks played gently in the background. Pups Autumn, Cleo, Fraser, Gwen, Lexi, Nuska, Opal, Sarah and Willow all enjoyed themselves and entered into the spirit of things, while learning lots of useful skills that will stand them in good stead for the lives as future assistance dogs. Again we wish Autumn and Willow luck as they prepare for their next stage of training on Monday, leaving puppy parents Claire and Mick & Annemarie bereft.

I then headed back down to Sussex, with a brief stop just south of Birmingham to visit some kennels. An added bonus was spotting the Canine Partners National Express coach on the motorway. This is fully branded with puppies and purple paw prints, and you must let us know if you spot it! National Express and their customers very generously support us, which is fantastic.

And the final excitement of the week is to have met England rugby star Chris Robshaw at our Sussex Centre today. Chris has nominated Canine Partners as one of his charities in this his testimonial year, and was taking a day out of his busy schedule in order to come and meet our people with their dogs. We are about to join Chris at a big fundraising event he is organising in London just before Christmas, so there’s a lot of excitement in the ranks.

So all in all it’s been a busy and exciting week, the icing on the cake being the TV appearances of Sally & cp Ethan and Tammy & cp Tatum, helping to further spread news of our work. You can find more about that on our social media pages.

Onwards & upwards!

Andy

NB: the picture featured on this page is a group of cyclists from our Amble route at Pedal for Paws.