Guide dogs do noughts and crosses with Sits and Downs
One of the important parts of breeding and training Guide Dogs is the breeding stock. We are a group of volunteers who look after the studs and broods in our homes. The brood bitch holders oversee the pups being born and look after them in their homes for the first 6 weeks. We also like to have fun with our dogs when they are not doing their important work so a group of us have got together to form an agility team. It’s really a bit of fun as we can’t compete with the usual border collies at agility and because they also have their breeding job to do so can’t do agility for some of the year.
Yesterday, the Guide Dogs breeding stock agility team had a fun day. One of the games we love to play is noughts and crosses with the dogs. We have a team who ask their dogs to sit and stay and a team who ask their dogs to lie down and stay and some of us get very competitive! It’s always a challenge to see who has won as dogs will move from sit to down and vice versa. Two of the dogs in this picture are stud dogs and the rest are brood bitches so putting the dog in close proximity is a challenge for them (and us!!!)
This is a great example of the skill that goes into training Guide Dogs. All of these dogs were puppywalked for a year which is the groundwork that enables them to go on to be trained as Guide Dogs. Then, all of them were picked for breeding because of the quality of their breeding line as well as their temperament. There is so much science as well as thought and effort that goes into training Guide Dogs and the breeding stock are well looked after by volunteers like me who do this important work for the love of it and because it adds such value to people’s lives.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far by sponsoring us and attending events. Our summer bbq at the weekend raised a further £297.15 through ticket sales, quizzes and donations and for the first time in the history of Paul and I holding barbeques, it did not rain!
We have now raised £1334.25 of the £2500 total target. We had to raise £1250 by the end of July to take part in the challenge and a further £1250 by the end of the year so thank you so much for your generous support and donations. We are currently planning further events for Sept, Oct and Nov so we’ll keep you posted.
Thanks again for your support,
Jude. x
