Pets Corner raise over £8,000 for Canine Partners

In-store and online customers donated a fantastic £4,187.85 by adding 30p to their purchases in a two week period in December 2020.

Pets Corner’s Managing Director Dean Richmond has also matched all the customer donations bringing the total donation to an amazing £8,375.

Dean Richmond said: “We are very thankful to our customers and staff for their support with our Christmas campaign, and I am delighted to be matching the donations to support Canine Partners, who continue to provide life-changing assistance to those in need during these difficult times.”

Canine Partners would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who supported the Pets Corner Christmas campaign. Your contribution will make a big difference during these difficult times.

Overall in 2020 Pets Corner raised an incredible £20,994.62 for Canine Partners. All donations help us to train and support assistance dogs throughout their lifetime, so they can provide life-changing support to adults with physical disabilities across the UK.

A corporate charity partnership with Canine Partners is an amazing way to make a lasting difference to the lives of people with physical disabilities. Find out more here.

How to shop and support Canine Partners this Christmas

You can shop and support Canine Partners this Christmas by shopping with Pets at Home’s VIP scheme, WufWuf, and the Co-op.

Pets at Home – VIP Lifelines

Do you regularly shop at Pets at Home? The Pets at Home VIP Lifelines Club allows members to receive offers, plus every swipe of your VIP card earns points that can help an animal charity. The VIP club’s Lifelines provide over 700 UK animal charities with vital food, medicines and toys – bringing health, comfort and joy – and you can select Canine Partners as your chosen charity!

How does VIP Lifelines work?

The Pets at Home Very Important Pets (VIP) Lifelines Club lets you enjoy a bundle of benefits when making purchases, including regular savings and offers, tailored tips and advice. When you sign up to the VIP Lifelines Club and swipe your VIP card at the till in stores, at the Groom Room and Vets4Pets, or at the online checkout, you’ll be earning points that can be given to your nominated charity. These points convert to vouchers, which Canine Partners can spend in store on vital equipment for our amazing dogs.

How can I sign up to the VIP Lifelines Club?

Signing up is easy. All you need to do is visit vip.petsathome.com/Register and follow the instructions to join. You must have at least one pet, be that a dog, cat or fish or a canine partner, as you’ll need to create a pet profile. Choose your local store and after that you’ll be able to ‘Choose a charity close to you heart’. Please select the ‘National Charity’ option and you’ll be given an alphabetical list of national charities where you’ll see Canine Partners. Once you’ve selected us, we will be shown in the ‘Lifelines’ box as your chosen charity. Don’t worry if you missed this step when registering for the VIP Lifelines Club, you can do it from your account profile at a later date.

WufWuf

Do you regularly buy toys and treats for your dog? WufWuf provide a monthly box of toys and treats through their subscription service and are offering to make a £5 donation to Canine Partners for every first box when signing up for a monthly subscription.

How does WufWuf work?

WufWuf provides a subscription service that delivers a box of treats and toys to you door every month. If you decide you would like to subscribe, sign up by clicking here to follow the link. WufWuf will donate

£5 to Canine Partners for every first box in a subscription and will also give you 25% off the price of £18.90. The discount will be automatically applied when you use this link. The normal subscription period is a year with a minimum subscription period of one month or anything in between.

When you sign up you’ll create a profile for your dog including their size and whether they have any allergies, as well as the usual details about yourself or the gift recipient.

You can also buy a subscription as a gift for someone else. Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. Full terms and conditions can be found on their website.

How can I sign up to WufWuf?

Simply click here if you want to subscribe for your dog.

Co-op Membership – Local Community Fund

Do you regularly shop at the Co-op? Every time members buy selected Co-op branded products and services, the Local Community Fund and the Community Partnerships Fund will each be rewarded with 1% each of the value of what you spend and you’ll also receive a personal reward of 2p for every pound spent. If you are a Co-op member or become one – you can select Canine Partners as your chosen charity!

How does the Co-op Local Community Fund work?

The Co-op receives applications from local charities all around the country once every year and in October chooses to support three charities for every local food store and Funeralcare. Registered Co-Op members receive rewards when shopping at a Co-op Food store and buying their own brand products, using the Funeralcare services or the Co-op legal service for standard legal services. Members can also choose a charity or cause and the Co-op will donate 1% of the value of any eligible spending.

Co-op membership costs £1. When you first register as a member or you change your address the Co-op will automatically assign you to a community based on your postcode and offer you three charities in your area, but you can change it. Every charity or cause has their own dedicated page on the Co-op membership website, which includes information about the charity and how much as been raised so far. A charity or cause may be located anywhere in the UK so, as long as a member is buying selected products or services from the Co-op Group, money raised through Co-op Membership can be generated across the UK. Full details about membership can be found here and you can join by going online at coop.co.uk/membership or by downloading the Co-op app.

How do I sign-up and support Canine Partners?

Between 25 October 2020 and 23 October 2021, Canine Partners is a Local Community Fund cause. The Canine Partners application was based on the Midhurst address of our Southern Training Centre and our linked Co-op locations are L F Lintott Funeralcare (Midhurst) and the Co-op food store in Petworth, West Sussex. Unless your postcode is in the Midhurst area you won’t be offered Canine Partners amongst the local charities, but you can still choose us by following the guidance below for existing members and non-members.

Exisiting Co-op members can support Canine Partners by clicking here and non-members need to join first by clicking here and selecting the underlined option to ‘become a Co-op member’. Remember only spending on Co-op own brand products will earn the 1%.

Thank you for shopping and supporting Canine Partners this Christmas.

Canine Partners awarded £100,000 by Barclays’ Covid-19 Community Relief Programme

Back in April 2020, Barclays announced a £100m Community Aid Package to support charities that are helping people and communities most impacted by Covid-19.

£10m of this funding has been donated through their 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme, with Canine Partners being one of 100 UK charities each receiving a donation of £100k, allowing their important work to continue.

Cat Harvey, Head of Fundraising at Canine Partners, said:

“We are so grateful to have been given £100,000 by the Barclays 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme. Like many charities, the pandemic has had a huge effect on our fundraising with all of our events this year cancelled, and donations like this help us to continue our life transforming work.”

The charity was chosen by a selection committee for the life-transforming assistance dogs we provide to adults living with physical disabilities across the UK.

Nigel Higgins, Barclays Group Chairman, said:

“Covid-19 has created an unprecedented social and economic impact in the UK, with many sadly experiencing greater hardship due to the crisis. Incredible charities, such as Canine Partners have been playing a vital role in the UK’s response to the pandemic, ensuring urgent help reaches those most in need of support. As a bank we have been doing all we can for our customers, clients and colleagues, and we hope that our 100×100 programme and wider community aid package helps ensure that everybody in the communities in which we live and work is supported through this crisis.”

About Barclays 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme

Barclays is committed to helping its customers, clients, colleagues, and the wider community deal with the unprecedented social and economic crisis caused by Covid-19. Barclays £100m Covid-19 Community Aid Package is designed to deliver support where it is needed most through corporate donations and matched colleague fundraising. An initial investment of £10m from the £100m Community Aid Package has been made through Barclays’ 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme, which has seen the bank make 100 donations of £100,000 to charities across the UK.

To see our amazing assistance dogs in action, please click here.

Tesco Bags of Help supports Bedfordshire canine partner puppy

Bags of Help is Tesco’s local community grant scheme where the money raised by the carrier bag charge in Tesco stores is being used to fund thousands of community projects.

Yoyo is a yellow Labrador and she has just had her first birthday. Volunteers have been taking care of puppy Yoyo for the past year and, along with all her classmates in Bedford, she has had a very different experience to what the charity would have planned for her. Weekly classes and outings in the local neighbourhood and further afield all ceased during Lockdown and Yoyo’s training became home-based. The charity has instead moved quickly to produce a wide variety of over 60 training, welfare and activity videos. This kept Yoyo and her puppy parents busy as she continued to learn new tasks and enjoy her training.

Yoyo is now getting out much more and learning about the world and, thanks to the funding from Tesco’s Bags of Help scheme, it is hoped she will move on to be considered for matching with one of the charity’s many clients on the waiting list for one of these very special dogs.

So from Yoyo, and all of us, thank you to Tesco Bags of Help for this fantastic support!

Get involved

There are so many ways you can get involved and help raise awareness and money for Canine Partners. To find out more, please visit our Fundraising page.

Canine Partners awarded £3,000 grant from The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity

We are extremely grateful for the donation, which will contribute towards our costs of training and providing assistance dogs for people currently on our waiting list.

The Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, Michael Prideaux, said:

“In addition to the Goldsmiths’ Charity Company’s work fostering and supporting the craft and trade of the goldsmith, silversmith and jeweller, the company continues to support charities working across a spectrum of critical issues.

At the start of the decade running up to our 700th Anniversary in 2027, we committed to spending £70m over the following ten years to strengthen the trade we serve and to improve the lives of those in London and around the UK.”

Our Trusts and Grants Officer, Sara Read, said this grant will achieve the objectives of the Goldsmith’s Company as it will be a direct benefit to those Canine Partners serves, helping the charity to train more dogs for people with physical disabilities to live with greater security, comfort, dignity and independence in the coming years.

Canine Partners BBC Lifeline Appeal

Thank you to everyone who watched our BBC Lifeline Appeal on Sunday 29 March 2020 on BBC One.

Did you miss it?

Not to worry! You can watch it again here.

The appeal is presented by Olympian Iwan Thomas MBE and takes you behind the scenes at Canine Partners with exclusive footage, interviews and heart warming stories to showcase our work. It’s not to be missed!

Meet Jackie, Jamie and Ian

In our BBC Lifeline Appeal, you get an exclusive look into the lives of Jackie, Jamie and Ian. Jackie, who has Multiple Sclerosis, was partnered with canine partner Babs in 2015 and Jamie, who has Cerebral Palsy, was partnered with canine partner Whisper in 2018. Babs and Whisper not only help Jackie and Jamie with every day tasks, but they also provide psychological and social benefits, including increased independence, confidence, social interaction and self-esteem.

Ian, who has Myotonic Dystrophy, is currently on the waiting list for an amazing Canine Partners assistance dog. Ian’s condition is genetic and progressive, meaning his muscle function continues to deteriorate over time. Ian lives alone and would benefit greatly from having a canine partner to help him around the house with daily tasks such as picking up dropped items, opening doors and fetching things for him.

Each canine partner costs £30,000

A significant number of adults with a physical disability would benefit from a canine partner assistance dog. Although we’ve been creating life-transforming partnerships for 30 years, there is still so much more we could do. The investment from puppyhood to retirement is now calculated to cost £30,000, so we hope that our BBC Lifeline Appeal will raise awareness of Canine Partners to help us to continue to transform lives for the next 30 years.

Together we can open doors and place more canine partners with people living with disabilities in the UK. We can help transform the lives of more people like Jackie, Jamie and Ian, who are featured in the appeal.

Thank you for your support.

To find out more about BBC Lifeline, please visit bbc.co.uk/lifeline.

Meet Welly, sponsored by David Wilson Homes

David Wilson Homes is based in Coalville, Leicestershire, and is part of Barratt Developments Plc. The company has kindly donated £50,000 to sponsor the costs of one of our assistance dogs from puppy to partnership and to further develop the site.

In recognition of this investment, we have named one of our puppies-in-training Wellington, or ‘Welly’ as he is affectionately known, after the Golden Retriever in the company’s own logo.

Richard Brooke, Regional Managing Director at David Wilson Homes, said:

“We are thrilled to be able to support Canine Partners with our donation and are already enjoying hearing the progress our puppy, Wellington, is making.

This well-deserving charity works tirelessly to provide disabled people with more independence and a better quality of life by giving them an assistance dog, and we are proud to be getting behind such a worthy cause. We are delighted to be able to support Canine Partners as they are a fantastic organisation.

We want to lead the industry not just in the quality of the homes and developments we build, but also in our work with charities and good causes throughout the UK.”

Puppy Wellington is currently living with his puppy parents in the Derby area and has begun the first steps of his training to become a canine partner.

David Wilson Homes is not only supporting the new kennel build but John Reddington, Managing Director of David Wilson Homes East Midlands, is organizing a large team of volunteers to help with the landscaping and other projects to develop the site and improve access.

We look forward to working together through 2020 and beyond.

Could your company support us?

Whether it’s as charity of the year, volunteering at events or giving a gift in kind, you can find out how your company can support Canine Partners on our Corporate Support page.

We’re Celebrating #BringYourDogToWorkDay!

Today (Friday 22nd June) is #BringYourDogToWorkDay and so we thought we would introduce you to a few of our four-legged colleagues!

We also wanted to share some of the results from a recent survey we carried out among staff at Canine Partners to really show the positive impact of having your dog at work with you!

Meet some of the gang

Ayla is ready to answer any of your calls about booking a talk!

Genie is our Chief Toy Retriever for when you need some downtime!

Lena helps Office Manager Gemma to sort the post!

Demo dog extraordinaire Radley is ready to jump into action – or just keep your feet warm under the desk!

Teal has mastered the art of being productive and adorable at the same time!

Jasper and his puppy dog eyes are ready to remind you when it’s time for a lunchtime walk!

Our Pets at Work Survey Results

At the time of our survey, 83% of Canine Partners staff that owned dogs brought them to work with them – that’s a lot of waggy tails! 97% of staff also said having pet dogs at work improves their health and well-being – so a lot of smiles, too!

Other highlights from the survey include:

88% said that bringing their dog to work helped to improve their work/life balance
88% also said that having pet dogs in the office reduces stress
100% of survey respondents said that having pet dogs and assistance dogs in training at work helped to improve staff morale

The Purina Pets at Work initiative

As one of our wonderful corporate supporters, we work closely with Purina to support their Pets at Work initiative. Purina believes that people and pets are better together, especially at work, and we couldn’t agree more!

Purina has found that pet-friendly workplaces lead to a vast range of positive benefits including higher employee engagement, talent retention, greater well-being and decreased stress (as proven in our survey results!).

They are on a mission to help other UK businesses to adopt pet-friendly policies in order to reap all of the benefits. To do this, they have produced an amazing Pets at Work toolkit to make implementing a policy much easier. Their dedicated team of champions are also on hand to support this change.

Purina’s goal is to help 200 organisations across Europe to open their doors to pets by 2020. For more information, visit https://www.purina.co.uk/pins/pets-at-work.

Sargeant Partnership choose us as their Charity of the Year!

Kent based chartered accountants Sargeant Partnership have chosen Canine Partners as their Charity of the Year.

We are delighted that Sargeant Partnership have decided to fundraise for Canine Partners as their Charity of the Year for 2017. One of the firm’s partners, Elaine Beal, first became aware of Canine Partners after watching a documentary about one of our partnerships many years ago.

Elaine has also seen our stall at Crufts on multiple occasions, and became more connected with the charity through a Facebook friend, Jackie Kennedy who is partnered with Kingston.

Sargeant Partnership decided they wanted to do something to give back to the community, and so Canine Partners was at the front of Elaine’s mind. She said:

“I have done charity fundraising for a number of years and believe that people like to see an end result to their effort, and work better if raising funds for something tangible they can see. I have seen the benefit Jackie has had through being partnered with Kingston so I made enquiries about how much it would be to fund a dog.”

After finding out that sponsoring a dog through the training and aftercare once matched with a partner is £20,000, Elaine posed this to the other partners at the firm and it was agreed without hesitation.

“The staff and partners have all totally embraced this project and are behind it 100%”.

To raise the required funds, Sargeant Partnership have a number of fundraising activities planned including monthly raffles and £5 lotteries, a tuck shop at their office, bake sales and many more. Their first bake sale is planned for April with a quiz night then planned for May. Following from there, a 3 mile sponsored walk will take place in June. If all of this wasn’t enough, they are also planning an online photo competition, summer ball and Carol singing near to Christmas.

Staff at the accountancy firm are all getting behind the fundraising effort, with many of them taking on their own challenges to add to the total.

A big thank you, and good luck to all of the staff and partners. We look forward to seeing how much you raise!

To donate to Sargeant Partnership’s fundraising, visit their JustGiving page.

Would you like to nominate Canine Partners as your Charity of the Year?

We would be thrilled if your company chose us as your Charity of the Year! You will receive plenty of support from us including but not restricted to opportunities to meet our amazing dogs, event assistance and PR support. Find out more about how to nominate us.

Wilko raise over £20,000 with events across the South

Puppy parent Jenny with puppy in training Gilly with Wilko Burgess Hill staff Corporate sponsors Wilko have been holding a number of events in some of their Southern stores in order to raise much needed funds for us to train more amazing dogs.

Staff from the 17 stores in the Hampshire, Surrey, Berkshire and West Sussex regions chose Canine Partners as their regional charity until April 2017, and have been hosting fundraisers in store to raise awareness of the Charity as well as encouraging their customers to donate.

Two of these fundraisers took place last weekend when staff from the Wilko Burgess Hill and Fareham branches hosted events.

Between Friday 2nd December and Sunday 4th, the Burgess Hill branch were joined by puppies Niamh, Hendrix, Jamie and Gilly (as well as their respective puppy parents Clinton, Richard, Jane and Paul, and Jenny of course!). Also in attendance to meet and greet was partnership Andy and Peggy.

The dogs, as always, proved to be very popular with the Wilko staff and customers alike. Lots of people stopped at the stand to buy cakes, put generous donations in our tin and met the dogs. It was a great success, having raised over £270.

Jane Calverley, one of the wonderful volunteers at Canine Partners, said:

“It was a really fun and worthwhile day for all concerned. A constant stream of customers stopped to meet the dogs, learn more about Canine Partners, eat the homemade cakes and make donations. The Wilko staff assigned to the stand were extremely enthusiastic in drawing in the public, and the combination of cakes and puppies seemed like a magnet, especially to families with young children!”

Meanwhile, between Saturday 3 December and Sunday 4th, the Fareham branch of Wilko held their own fundraiser for us. On the Saturday, staff were joined by partnership Jenni and LBE as well as puppy parent Lynne and pup Jonty. Hazel and puppy Forest, along with partnership Jenny and Eliza, went along on the Sunday.

Customers loved saying hello to the dogs and finding out more about Canine Partners and what we do.

A big thank you to Wilko for hosting these events and helping us to raise the profile of Canine Partners, and gratitude is also due to all of the puppy parents and other volunteers who came by to support Wilko.