Lucy, who joined Canine Partners in 2022, describes her career as “far from conventional,” not a planned route.

“I certainly did not expect to end up as CEO for Canine Partners, but every step along the way has been instrumental in shaping who I am today.” Lucy says.

Lucy’s career began with in the Army as an Officer in the Royal Logistic Corp, both Regular and Reserve. This chapter was pivotal: “The Army taught me that I was always more capable than I thought I was and how to fix complex problems when there was no obvious solution.” The skills gained during this period, including resilience, problem-solving, and adaptability, lay a strong foundation for Lucy’s career.

Transitioning to civilian life, Lucy spent over 15 years as an HR professional across various sectors, travelling extensively and working on diverse projects. “Working with people can be challenging, especially when it comes to managing change,” says Lucy. “So I always try to balance my natural task-focused, practical approach with listening and empathy.”

On a final note, Lucy says, “I like to think that my experience has led me to this role and that my career highlight is still to come with Canine Partners!”

I would like to introduce myself as the new CEO of Canine Partners. I’m thrilled to be here and excited with what the future holds for the charity!

Throughout my career, I have seen the difference animals make to all our lives. The opportunity to get involved with an organisation that has both people and dogs at the heart of its services seemed the perfect fit for me. During the interview process it was evident how passionate everyone was about the partnerships Canine Partners creates, and so I was delighted to be offered the role.

Let’s start with a bit about my background and previous charity work. I live in beautiful Shropshire, close to the Wyre Forest. I have two crazy Irish water spaniels, two Kune-Kune pigs and around 20 chickens. I spend a lot of my free time looking after them all, as well as long woodland and riverside walks. I am also a Trustee of the Animal Welfare Foundation, a small charity that is committed to improving the welfare of all animals through veterinary science, education and debate. I trained as a vet at Liverpool University and then spent eight years working in small animal practices in the Midlands. I spent most of that time working for veterinary charity PDSA in one of their busy Pet Hospitals and from there I moved into a central role for the charity, where I developed the community outreach services and managed all the veterinary policy and campaign activities.

Working for PDSA helped me to realise how much I enjoy fundraising, marketing, team development and impact measurement. I am so excited to be able to bring some of those skills and expertise to my role as CEO for Canine Partners.

Canine Partners has come so far over the last 28 years thanks to the insight of its founders and dedication and passion of all the staff and volunteers during that time. The charity has many foundations in place and so I hope to continue that journey and raise greater awareness of the charity to a much wider audience.

My focus will be ensuring we are fit for the future, using innovation and technology to improve communications and finding new opportunities for income generation. I am also passionate about being able to demonstrate the difference we make as an organisation and will be working with our partners, volunteers and teams to showcase the impact we deliver both internally and externally.

I believe Canine Partners has a very bright future thanks to the hard-work, passion and commitment from everyone involved. I want to personally say a huge thank you to all our volunteers, supporters and staff for everything you do on a daily basis, as well as providing me with such a warm welcome to the charity.  When I listen to the stories that were shared on my first partnership day, I know that we all have a role to play to continue the journey that began nearly 30 years ago, helping to create even more life-changing partnerships.

This year marks a milestone in the history of Canine Partners, with our Scottish team celebrating 10 years of partnering these amazing dogs with disabled people in Scotland.

I clearly remember visiting Vivien in her home in Dumfries ten years ago, preparing the way for her allocated canine partner to arrive. Vivien was a keen orienteering competitor, which she undertook in a very fancy souped-up outdoor go-anywhere wheelchair. More like a quad bike, really. For this reason, she required an equally fancy souped-up go-anywhere assistance dog, which meant that labradoodle Cosmo fitted the bill perfectly. Her match with Cosmo also benefitted from the fact that Vivien was allergic to many types of dog hair, with the marked exception of the rough hair of the miniature schnauzers that she had previously owned. Cosmo’s hair was perfect for her, and the fact that he looked like some sort of giant schnauzer cross, was just the icing on the cake.

Sadly Vivien’s partnership with Cosmo was all too short, as Vivien passed away tragically early in life, due to complications associated with her disability. This was terribly sad for the Canine Partners family in Scotland but made us all the more determined that other people in Scotland should follow in Vivien’s footsteps in being matched with our dogs.

In 2017 there are now 30 people living life in Scotland with a specially trained canine partner by their side and several more people in the process of being partnered. To celebrate this milestone, the whole Canine Partners Scottish team assembled at Falkirk Football stadium last weekend under the watchful eye of the famous Kelpies. Nearly 150 of us were in the audience to hear Liz Ormerod, co-founder of Canine Partners and a Scot herself, describe how the charity started. Volunteer Danny Gallagher then spoke on behalf of all our various volunteers in Scotland – Danny has volunteered in many different ways over the years, as a puppy parent, dog-fosterer, volunteer speaker and as the handler of demonstration dog Heston, whose fame reaches far and wide across Scotland.

Sally Hyder then spoke on behalf of all our partnerships in Scotland, with cp Cleo by her side. Sally has played an active role in the development of Canine Partners, initially matched with canine partner Harmony for many years until her passing, and having written bestselling book “Finding Harmony”. More recently matched with Cleo as her ‘successor dog’, Sally was at pains to stress that she was speaking on behalf of all 30 of our partnerships in Scotland. We shared many memories of events that have taken place over the years, not least Sally’s conquering of Ben Nevis in a wheelchair, with Harmony by her side, and the Canine Partners team’s role in helping carry the baton for both the 2012 Olympics (Sally) and the 2014 Commonwealth Games (Zoe, Gill, Lorraine and Graeme). We reminisced about Her Majesty The Queen’s visit to Holyrood where she met Zoe & cp Remus, and many more events besides, such as the annual Bluebell Walk organised by the West Scotland group, the ferret racing event organised by the Scottish fundraising committee, and the various events that have been run by the Weir family for the benefit of Canine Partners and other good causes in Scotland too.

Finally our trustees closed the formal proceedings, with Jackie Staunton speaking in her role as Chair of the charity and Claire Graham speaking not only as a trustee but also as a partnership with one of our dogs – big labradoodle Frankie lay patiently by Claire’s side as she spoke about her journey with Canine Partners in general and Canine Partners in Scotland in particular. Claire attended the very first awareness-raising events for the charity in Scotland and was a prime force in helping the charity to make progress north of the border. The biggest coincidence of all is that Claire grew up on the outskirts of Glasgow, and was matched with Frankie who was also born in the same district. What are the chances of that?!

Special mention of Dale Gormley, our Scotland Community Manager, who organised the whole celebration event for us – we ate, drank and were merry and vowed to return in ten years time to celebrate the next chapter in the story of Canine Partners in Scotland.

A big thank you to everyone who has played their part in helping us make such great progress in Scotland over the last ten years. If you would like to be part of our future plans, by all means contact Dale at daleg@caninepartners.org.uk and we will see how we can involve you in this big family of ours.

Onwards and upwards for Canine Partners in Scotland!

Andy

The sun is shining and we are really in a hot spell – a bit too hot for our dogs to be honest, which is meaning we are all having to change our routines so that dog walks don’t happen in the middle of the day. Some of these balmy evenings are lovely, however, and are providing the perfect backdrop for our summer schedule of events.

Our latest outing was kindly hosted by the Earl and Countess of Erroll, in the gardens of their Bedfordshire home. The Earl and Countess had originally heard about our work via vice patrons Roger Jefcoate and Tita Kindersley, and Jo Hill who is matched with canine partner Unis. So it was that they kindly opened up their gardens for us to explain our work to the local community, with ‘demo dogs’ Grainger and Humphrey showcasing the skills that we teach all our four-footed friends, and Jo then explaining how much of a difference these dogs make to people’s lives. As a charity, we really are all about the people: giving people an opportunity to become more independent and more socially active, all because of the dog with whom they are matched.

From Bedfordshire, my next trip was to Scarborough to join our friends at the Foresters Friendly Society for their annual conference. These amazing people have been busy raising money for us over the last 12 months, with all sorts of fundraisers large and small, far and wide, some of which have involved high speed zip wires and skydives, and some haven’t. The end result was that I was presented with a great big cheque (literally!) for £65,000 by their ‘high chief ranger’ Glyn Carpenter, which was absolutely astounding, and will help more people to be partnered with our dogs and will also help us make progress with completing our Leicestershire facilities. Thank you Glyn and team – we really appreciate all your help!

While I was in Scarborough, the rest of the team were split between London, where we were delighted to showcase our work to the staff at ACCA with demo dogs Yarna and Toffee doing the honours on this occasion, and Sussex where we held a Partnership Ceremony. These occasions are our opportunity to bring together all those people who have been involved in creating the partnership, either by volunteering their time or supporting in some other way, and they provide some very positive feedback to show how greatly a person’s contribution has been appreciated – and what a difference it has made to the person’s life now that they are matched with such a specially trained dog.

Thanks to so many people’s help, we have already created 42 new partnerships between dogs and disabled people this year, with another six months still to go. This is thanks to a great team effort by a whole load of people all across the UK, busy training puppies and adult dogs, busy working with our partners and potential partners, providing aftercare to all 390 people who currently have a fully fledged canine partner by their side, and busy raising money to cover the costs, so that people continue to receive our services free of charge. We do not receive any government funding, which is why we are looking for more people to sponsor puppies like Sky and Summer. For more details visit: https://caninepartners.org.uk/donate/sponsor-an-amazing-puppy/

Meanwhile the show goes on! Next stop for us will be to head to East Sussex on Wednesday, for another demonstration of our work, thanks to another generous supporter who has organised this opportunity for us. I’ll tell you all about it in my next update.

Onwards & upwards for the Canine Partners family!

Andy

What would you do if you were given 25 small pieces of fabric?

Would you use them to make a sky full of butterflies? Or a portrait of the Queen? Or perhaps a stunning close-up of a black Labrador’s face? Maybe a quintessential English country garden or a bee-keeping scene, if you were that way inclined? Or possibly even find some driftwood and make some patchwork birds to sit on the various branches, with sweet little wire legs?

These were just some of the stunning creative inventions that were put together last week by members of the Canine Partners family for our Textile Art Challenge Exhibition at the Oxmarket Centre of Arts, Chichester, the brainchild of Dr Sharon-Michi Kusunoki, renowned Curator and Executive Director of Surrealism and the Arts. Dr Sharon helped us to create a stunning exhibition, and even recruited professional guest artists to supplement the exhibition with their own work, all inspired by our ‘25 fabric squares’ idea.

As chief executive of a charity with innovation and creativity at its heart, where people spend their day jobs thinking up better and better ways of matching assistance dogs to the specific needs of disabled people, it felt amazing to see how our Canine Partners family can divert this creative energy into another direction. It was particularly inspiring to see how utterly brilliant these creations are, coming from members of staff, a whole host of volunteers and our partners and supporters too.

These exhibits came from all over the country, and many of them have been transported back to base in the boot of my car, following a visit to one or other of our satellite groups around the country. If I’d known how special the works of art were, I’d have handled them a bit more carefully when putting them in the boot with the bags of dog food!

The exhibition proved a great success, and now the idea has moved up to the Midlands, where we have a whole host of other exhibits, for our Midlands Textile Art Challenge Exhibition which is now open.

We also had another recent excitement as we were joined by our friends from Help for Heroes, who held a conference for their supporters at our Southern Centre, because they are keen to showcase the work of Canine Partners. Many injured servicemen have been provided with canine partners thanks to the sponsorship of H4H.

Now the bank holiday is out of the way, our attention moves to Staffordshire where we are holding another of our puppy parties, an opportunity for people in the Stafford area to find out how they can help us to train our puppies in their formative months. From there, I will be heading to our Midlands Centre, to see how our Midlands exhibition is shaping up, and you never know, I might have dreamed up some creative way of using 25 fabric squares by then. But no, you’re right; that’s probably a long shot.

Meanwhile our Scottish team are gearing up for a very busy couple of weeks – our annual golf event at Prestwick, our West Coast support group’s Bluebell Walk on Sunday (why not join us there, from 12 – 4pm at Pollokshaws Burgh Hall? See https://caninepartners.org.uk/event/big-glasgow-bluebell-walk-fun-day/) and our sell-out Fingask Follies evening at Dundas Castle on the following Wednesday.

So everything is hotting up in the world of Canine Partners right across the UK!! And most importantly of all, it is enabling us to change more people’s lives, like the people who have just been partnered with dogs at each of our Training Centres this week. This is what it’s all about, and why we all do what we do!

Onwards & upwards!

Andy

It all kicks off on Wednesday, with a puppy party at our West Sussex Centre, before then moving quickly up to Hull, where we are holding our second party. Then it will be the turn of Derby and Bedford, with a quick detour to the NEC to take part in Crufts. And then loads more parties after that too. All venues and dates can be found here.

At each of these parties, members of the public are welcome to just drop in and join us, to meet our local team of pups and Puppy Parents (Puppy Parents are those dedicated volunteers who puppy walk our youngsters for us). You will hear a bit about our work, before then getting into the nitty gritty of what puppy walking actually entails. You will have the opportunity to watch our pups in action, and to ask as many questions as you like, because our brilliant Puppy Parents are very happy to tell you exactly what is involved. And you will also meet the actual trainer who would look after you if you decided to become a Puppy Parent yourself. Of course there’s an application process, as puppy walking isn’t for everyone and we need to make sure it’s right for you….but you can start the process off by filling out the forms while you join us at the parties. And if after all that you’re completely exhausted, you can sit down and have a cuddle with one of our puppies before you go home. What’s not to like?!

I probably ought to mention that even if you don’t think you would be able to fit puppy walking into your lifestyle, you’re still very welcome to come and join us at the parties, and find out other ways to help. One obvious alternative, which is painless and doesn’t involve actually having a pup live with you, is to sponsor one of our pups for just £1 a week. (I know, unbelievably cheap, isn’t it?! See My Amazing Puppy on the website…or just pop in to see us at a party near you.

But before we get to Wednesday, we have even more excitement, this time at our Leicestershire centre, as we gear up for our first Partnership Ceremony of 2017, where our recently formed partnerships officially graduate and we can say thank you to everyone who has played their part in making it possible.

So next week is going to be a busy one – if you’re coming to one of these events, I look forward to seeing you there. And if you’re not, I’ll tell you all about it in my next blog!

Andy

PS Did I tell you that another two people went home from our Centre today with their fully trained canine partners?

PPS Have you signed up for our abseil in London yet, on 18^th May? It will be an amazing experience and I’m definitely doing it, even with my dodgy knee.

November really hotted up for us, which is odd as I haven’t seen so much ice on my car for a long time. It all started when I went to Bedford. (And that isn’t a euphemism for ‘going to Bedford’, as in ‘taking a trip up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire because I’m tired’). I actually went to Bedford the place – and why on earth wouldn’t I, when there were 100 puppies to be seen?!! And I wasn’t the only one who headed there for the occasion, as members congregated in the Happy Dog hall from far and wide and from all corners of the globe. Or to be exact, Charlotte, Bex and I drove up from Sussex and Ronnie headed down from Leicestershire. Most of the other 50 or so guests belonged to our wonderful Bedford satellite, and had joined together for a surprise 100th puppy and 10 year celebration. The person who was most surprised of all was trainer Lorraine, who oversees the satellite, and has helped and supported all our fantastic volunteers through the ups and downs of training and socialising 100 puppies for Canine Partners. It was a brilliant milestone, and a brilliant achievement, and capped off by the arrival of our 100th puppy herself, young Pixie in the arms of Roger and Nerissa.

And then, just a few days later, it all kicked off in Bedford again, as the satellite reconvened in the puppy class hall (which incidentally is the coldest place in the whole of the UK, being several degrees colder than Scotland. And I should know, as I was working with Dale in Scotland just two days earlier). This time it was the occasion of our Bedford satellite’s annual Christmas Fayre, and a very excited Lorraine texted me with the amazing news that the Fayre raised £2,320 for Canine Partners! Wow!

So that really marked the beginning of Christmas Excitement in the Canine Partners camp. This was closely followed by the amazing experience that has been the Big Give Christmas Challenge, raising over £60,000 for our little charity over the course of three days, thanks to the immense generosity of lots of people, and a superhuman effort by a staunch supporter of ours, who matched donations that were being made by other people. If you follow us on Facebook or Twitter you will have sensed the excitement as the donations came rolling in. All very very exciting!

Which then leads me to encourage you to join in our next dose of traditional Yuletide fun, with a lovely Christmas Carol Service organised in aid of us by the inspirational Angela Hamlin and her dedicated team at Draycott Nursing & Care. Please do join us. Tickets are available here. It takes place on the evening of Thursday 15th December, at St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, in the presence of His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester. Lots of Christmas music including carols by the choir of Thomas’s School, Fulham, and readings by celebrities including Valerie Singleton, Rula Lenska, Tim McMullan and Jack Fox. You will also meet lots of people and dogs from the Canine Partners family, while we wine and dine you with drinks and canapés afterwards. What’s not to like? Let’s fill the church with our singing, and help raise some more money so we can go out and change some more people’s lives with these specially trained dogs of ours.

Happy Christmas everybody!! (I can’t believe I just said that, on December 5th)

Andy

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!

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.