This June, Ruth Tucker, a member of Switalskis’ Clinical Negligence team in Sheffield, joined Support Dogs and more than 200 guests at a garden party at the beautiful Sandbeck House to celebrate the assistance dogs charity’s 25th anniversary.
Being a dog lover, I jumped at the opportunity to attend Support Dogs’ 25th Birthday Garden Party. Support Dogs are a charity that train assistance dogs for people with autism, epilepsy or physical disability. They adapt the dog’s training to suit the service user’s needs and requirements, whilst taking great care in matching up the right dogs to the right clients to create lifelong partnerships.
They use positive and effective training methods and even recruit some of their dogs from rescue centres or from homes that can no longer care for them. That means that I was lucky enough to spy some Terriers and suchlike sprinkled amongst the usual Labradors and Retrievers.
I was also fortunate enough to be given a demonstration of just what these dogs can do: taking laundry out of the washing machine, posting letters, and helping with the shopping, amongst many other things.
Support Dogs also provides ongoing support to clients throughout their journey and are always on hand for any issues that may arise.
It was a pleasure to meet the dedicated Support Dog team (and their dogs in training) together with some of their clients who have already been partnered up with their clever canines.
