Fostering a future guide dog

[lovenotwar149]

Hi all you pet lovers, I am one too of course! So I am making initial enquiries about a volunteering role- fostering a dog that is undergoing guide dog training. Its a 26 wk commitment whereby the dog in training lives with us for this period. We would be responsible for it every eve and every w/e. During the week we would need to take and collect it from the training centre. All expenses are paid for. Has anyone done this? Anyone got any stories , both positive and maybe negative too?

Hi,

There a 'Dog House' board which might attract the crowd you want to talk to more than the generic 'Pets'.

Your title is a misnomer. The puppy you would be fostering would not be blind, so you might want to ask Mumsnet to change it for you 'fostering a future guide dog' would be clearer.

I don't have any advice for you as I haven't done it myself but just wanted to say a big THANK YOU. As you can tell from my username, I have an assistance dog who has changed my life and brings me so much happiness as well as practical support. My dog is a hearing dog rather than a guide dog. I wouldn't be able to have him if there weren't lovely people like you volunteering to look after them when they're puppies.

Best of luck to you. And do ask the staff at Guide Dogs for as much help as you need.

Oh ok, thanks for that advice , appreciated. I am glad to hear your dog has brought you so much happiness. lovely to hear!

I see my mistake here in my title...oops

I have contacted mumsnet to ask if they can change the title 🙏

Hi OP, we've edited the title and moved your thread to The Doghouse. Best of luck.

👌thanks!

I haven’t done it but my neighbour did it for over twenty years from retirement till his late eighties.

If you don't get many replies here, I would imagine there is probably a lively real life community of volunteers doing this and they probably meet up and there are likely online Facebook groups and stuff too. Guide Dogs may also have a portal which you could log into to chat with others doing the same thing.

My friends did this, they loved doing it but it broke their hearts when the dog went to the new owners.

Luckily for them the dog failed the next stage of training so they ended up adopting him!

ok thanks people!

I am a puppy raiser for Guide Dogs and we currently have our second pup living with us. Puppy raisers have the pups as babies, before they go into training, at which point they move to fosterers. We have only been puppy raising for 15 months but I now can’t imagine not doing it. The pups bring so much joy and we know the early work we’re putting in with them will hopefully help them to turn into the life changing guide dogs of the future. The only downside for us was our first lovely boy leaving us to go into training. We always knew he wasn’t ours so we didn’t expect to be so sad when he went off to school! We are kept up to date with his progress though and he’s loving being in training. His fostered loves him as much as we did (and still do!).

If you’re on FB, I suggest do a search on there as there are various Guide Dogs FB groups. Good luck!

We foster training GD dogs, it works really well for us. It is a bit sad when the dog moves on, but it's also lovely getting the updates about how he has changed his new owner's life.

We've also built some lovely relationships with some of our dogs' trainers and care staff which is an unexpected benefit.

There are loads of Facebook groups, but be aware that some of them are full of a particularly vocal set of puppy raisers who think they should be at the forefront of every decision regarding "their" dog and they're often quite dismissive of the role fosterers play. But don't let that put you off, just find a better group!

Also, if you have any specific questions, I'm happy to talk about my experience!

Out of interest can you have puppy's or trainee dogs if you have another dog in the house?

Thanks a lot, some good info for me to digest here, appreciated!

Yes you can. We have our own pet dog plus we’re puppy raising a guide dog. However your own dog would be assessed as part of the interview process. A Guide Dogs assessor brought a trainee pup to our house and she closely watched the dogs’ interaction. I think this was to check that introducing a puppy into the mix would work for our dog as much as it would for their pup. She also ‘interviewed’ our cat, who sat on the top of our tallest bookshelf and ignored her. 🙄

Hi - I'm a puppy raiser for guide dogs and my dd has been a fosterer with the training centre.

It's a great role, and I'd actually prefer to do the fostering because the dogs are more mature and it's a shorter commitment, but we don't live close enough to a training centre.

Are there any specific reservations you have?

Friends of ours have been doing this recently and have really been enjoying it…they say they get all the benefits of having a dog, but without the full blown commitment….there were tears when the pup got to the next stage, but I don’t think you’d be human if there weren’t!

I foster dogs, and have had a lot of Labrador puppies. They are truly gorgeous dogs, but be warned, labs are complete twats until about 18 months. Into everything, running around, very mouthy, constantly in the go, eat anything, get into everything. Be prepared to be on the go all the time.

However they are also very trainable (due to being intelligent and food orientated), so things like house training, walking on leads are a doddle. I presume you'll get a list of dos and don't so might be partially trained anyway.

They are also scrummy and loveable. It'll be hard to let them go but they will doing a fantastic thing and will be loved

Hi, I'm not able to advise directly but just wanted to say as the mum of a blind toddler a big thank you to all of you who are involved in this or considering it and that your support makes a massive impact to the lives of visually impaired people and their families.

My advice would be to get in touch with your local visual impairment charity who would be able to perhaps use their contacts to you in touch with local people who are involved with this. I'm in Scotland and Visibility Scotland would be who I would recommend, but I assume there are similar organisations across the UK who could help closer to home.

This is true, but generally not all of them guide dog puppies are out of the total twat stage by the time they go into training and fosterers will be looking after them.

This is true, but generally not all of them guide dog puppies are out of the total twat stage by the time they go into training and fosterers will be looking after them.

Completely agree with this. Our own Labrador was a total nutter until she was about 4 years old. The GD puppies we’ve had have been a lot calmer than she was.

We've been fostering training dogs for a couple of years. Love it. The plan was we have a dog for around 22 weeks until they qualify. Our first dog was gorgeous but not cut out to be a guide dog so was withdrawn from training and went up for adoption. Her puppy raisers couldn't wait to get her back and adopted her. As we're home full-time, we've ended up fostering dogs that have been withdrawn and they stay with us until they're adopted. Naturally we fell into the fosterers trap and having fostered a real sweetie for 5 months, we ended up adopting her. We still foster and the current foster boy (dog number 7) absolutely loves playing with her. If you volunteer, you never need to be without a dog. If you have a partner and they volunteer too you can have 2 fosters 😄

Guide Dogs really need more fosters in all categories - I recommend it! And if you don't think you could say goodbye, adopt one of the withdrawn dogs, they're all lovely.

We applied and got accepted, then bloody covid hit!
I think it’s fantastic opportunity plus you can take them everywhere as they are guide dogs in training. We ended up getting our own dog so didn’t chase it up when things got back to normal, but it’s something I’d consider in future. As long as you don’t live too far from the training centre I’d go for it!

Actually you don't need to live near a Guide Dog centre, you need to live near a trainer as many trainers work from home.
If you go to https://www.guidedogs.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteering/volunteer-with-our-dogs/ you can find what volunteer foster roles are needed in your area.