Canine Partners

It was at our recent demonstration event in the middle of Canary Wharf that Saffy bowed out (literally) from a long and distinguished career as a demonstration dog. To be clear, she wasn’t demonstrating against the election of Donald Trump, she was simply showing off her skills as a canine partner so that the good people of Canary Wharf could understand what our dogs do to assist people with disabilities.

This was a wonderful opportunity to showcase our work and raise some funds, as we conducted dozens of displays throughout the day with a whole team of dogs and willing human volunteers. This was Saffy’s final display, as she heads into well deserved retirement. Together with her handler Jill, Saffy has performed countless demos over the years, in all sorts of different settings, with a private display to Her Majesty The Queen being just one of them. Thank you Saffy, and thank you Jill – you have been brilliant and have done so much for the cause of Canine Partners. We will miss you from the demonstration team.

Hot on the heels of Canary Wharf, our next event was a Supporter Catch Up back at our Sussex Centre. This is our opportunity to fill in our supporters on how things are progressing at Canine Partners. Lots of these particular people have pledged to support our little charity by leaving a gift in their will, so we were keen to show them how we are helping more disabled people with every year that goes by, and to explain our plans for the future. The president of our Legacy Club, Colonel Alan Jukes, gave an inspirational speech outlining his own reasons for supporting Canine Partners, and congratulated everyone for ‘doing their bit’ by pledging a gift in this way to secure the Charity’s future.

Someone else who is doing their bit, is our Anne, director of fundraising. She works full time, and then last weekend nips out to the USA entirely at her own expense to take part in the New York marathon, and then flies straight back home again to continue her day job. How amazing is that?! Talk about going above and beyond! What’s even more incredible is that Anne has so far raised over £10,000 for Canine Partners via her Justgiving page, thanks to the brilliant generosity of so many people. There is a real growing momentum at our little charity, and it is all thanks to lots and lots of inspiring people doing their bit, in all sorts of different ways.

And in case you haven’t seen the banner on our website, if you do your bit and make a donation via The Big Give on  the days that run from midday Tues 29th November to midday Fri 2nd December, your donation is DOUBLED, so makes TWICE as much of a difference on those days. This is thanks to a very generous supporter who has agreed to match all our donations for The Big Give Christmas Challenge. So let’s all put those dates in our diaries now, to remind us that our contributions get doubled via The Big Give.

Of course the whole point of doing our bit is to change the lives of those people who come to us for help. And that’s where Jodie comes in. Jodie is one of our more recent trainers, who has been learning the ropes, training dogs and instructing disabled people, under the watchful eye of our more experienced members of the team. Today was a milestone for Jodie as she completed her first partnership course, under Vicky’s supervision, and had the satisfaction of seeing her very first dogs and partners leave our site together, having completed their residential courses. Thanks to Jodie’s work, another three people have now been able to start the next stages of their lives, with a trained canine partner by their side. And of course Jodie is just one member of a big team effort here, with everyone playing their part to get this job done.

Thank you for everything you do to help us – we really couldn’t do it without you.

Andy

PS. Have you bought your tickets for our special Draycott Christmas Carol Service in London on December 15th? Click here to find out more and book your seats!