Bed and Breakfast and weekend foster parents

Experienced dog lovers required to provide overnight and weekend care for assistance dogs in training!

Volunteering to provide overnight 'Bed & Breakfast' accommodation for advanced dogs during training is very important to our work. This rewarding role follows on from the vital Volunteer Puppy Parents role, where dogs are now approximately 14 months old and entails having a dog all weekend and possibly from 5pm until 8.30am on weekdays.

The Canine Partners B&B programme has been set up because we believe it is conducive to our advanced dogs for their training to be continued while they are in a home environment on the evenings and weekends (for an average 20 weeks each). The dogs are house trained, can be left alone for short periods of time and are very well behaved.

Can you help with overnight fostering during the week?
As well as weekend fostering we do have plenty of openings for people wishing to look after our dogs in the evenings. Although we have kennels on site, some dogs find it very beneficial to settle in a home during their training. If you live in the local vicinity of Heyshott or Osgathorpe and would be willing to pick up a dog each night between 4pm and 5pm and drop the dog back to us in the morning between 8.30 and 9.00 am, then please let us know. The dogs will not require walking in the evening, just their dinner and a comfy bed (all supplied by us).

B&B or weekend volunteer foster parents would ideally meet the following criteria:

The *majority of applicants must live locally to Midhurst at our West Sussex Training Centre and/or be able to bring the dog to the training centre by 9.30am and collect no later than 5pm on weekdays
Have prior experience of owning and handling dogs
You must have a secure, dog-friendly garden
You must be happy to maintain the standard of training of the dog they are looking after (training will be given)
You must be physically strong enough to manage a young fit dog
You should have access to transport suitable for carrying the dog

We are currently in the process of upgrading our weekend fostering scheme and implementing changes to improve the system to benefit both the dogs and fosterers. The changes:

Regular fostering: When the dogs come into advanced training, they are with us for 15 weeks before being placed with their new partner. This is potentially an unsettling time for the dogs as they are moved away from their puppy homes and into kennels at Heyshott; they also have to take on and learn a lot of new information. Therefore, to make this period of time as easy as possible for the dogs, we are ideally looking for Fosterers who can offer a regular commitment of 15 weekends, so that each dog can go to the same fosterer each weekend. We are aware that this is a significant amount of time so should a commitment come up that means you are unable to do one or two weekends, we do have an army of volunteers which will foster for the odd occasion
Own dogs: we apologise but we will no longer be accepting applications from people with their own dogs, we are just finding that this is not working. The Canine Partner dog has to be exercised and walked separately from your own dog thus creating an extra work load
Pick up and drop off times - All dogs collected from Heyshott should be collected on a Friday between 4pm and 5pm (occasional early pick ups can be arranged, but must be agreed with the dog’s trainer). Drop off times on a Monday morning are between 8.30am and 9.30am

Calling all volunteers in the Midlands....we are currently looking for potential B&B foster parents for our new training centre at Fields Farm, Osgathorpe. If you live near here and are interested to learn more about volunteering opportunities in the area, please call our Midlands centre on 01530 224442.

* There is some need for Foster Parents near the Puppy Training Satellites to cover holidays etc. Canine Partners will provide food, bedding and equipment for the dog and reasonable expenses (such as mileage), can be claimed back from the charity.

For further information and an application form, please call The Training Department on 08456 580 480 or contact us.

Canine Partners for Independence. Registered in England No. 2516146. Charity Commission Registered No. 803680. Scottish Registered Charity No. SCO39050