My name is Jess and I live in Chichester. I am one of the many Fosterer volunteers at Canine Partners. We have fostered one dog so far; a gorgeous, cheeky, yellow Labrador called Austen. He has recently successfully completed his training and has now been placed with his full-time partner.

I had never had a dog as a pet, so was rather nervous to begin with. However, I needn’t have been. When I first contacted Canine Partners, I spoke to Ewen, the team’s volunteer Foster Coordinator, who explained the role in detail and reassured me that there would be help and support throughout the entire experience. He also visited our house with a Canine Partners dog, to give me more insight into the role. Then I was given specific dog training at the charity’s Southern Training Centre, to introduce the basic commands and to meet the team.

A few days later, Austen arrived, brought to us by one of the Advanced Trainers, Ellie. He settled quickly into his new home and we very quickly started to adore him.

We quickly fell into a good routine of him going to the charity’s Southern Training Centre three times a week. The other days he spent with me at home. He met all the neighbours, who also fell for his lovely nature and temperament. When you are walking your dog, you soon realise that the dog owning fraternity is very friendly and welcoming. Austen and I went out twice a day, for the six months he was with us and amazingly, I only got caught in the rain twice!

Throughout my time fostering Austen, the Advanced Trainers continued to give me help and support and new skills to practice with Austen at home.

Whilst I am a dog novice, my husband had grown up with dogs and he says that he has never met such a well-trained and obedient dog.

Fostering Austen has been massively rewarding. I had never experienced the unwavering, unconditional love from a dog and Austen’s love filled us all with happiness. He seemed to be overjoyed to see us, whether we had been out of the room for five minutes or out of the house for an hour, we always received a warm welcome back.

Fostering a dog is a commitment, but one I would highly recommend. It gave us all a huge sense of pride seeing Austen complete his training, knowing that we’d played a part in him going on to change someone’s life. We have so many amazing memories of Austen and hope to see him again one day.

Would you like to experience the wonders of looking after one of our dogs in Advanced Training who will go on to help transform the life of a disabled person? Find out more at caninepartners.org/foster