Puppy Raising or Fostering for Guide Dogs

[CandidOP]

Hi. I just wondered if anyone had recent experience of Puppy raising or Fostering for Guide Dogs? My DH and I are considering it and are just wondering what the overall experience would be like. Obviously we have read the material that is available but on the whole this naturally portrays a fairly positive message and we wondered if everybody genuinely has this sort of experience? We are in our early sixties with no DC's. I am retired and DH works from home. We were hoping that the puppy would assimilate into our lifestyle with regard to holidays in the UK, family visits and so on and wondered if this was encouraged or whether the training requirements were such that in reality we would end up curtailing our activities for the duration of the puppy's time with us.

I don’t know about the Guide Dog side of things but have you had a puppy before? They’re hard work will take over your life. You say you hope the puppy will assimilate into your life. It doesn’t work like that. You have to assimilate into their life.

They are adorable, cute and fun as well.

There are a few posters around here who have helped raised foster puppies. What I would say is that, from what they have said/implied, it’s even less flexible than having your own puppy. Your dog is being trained up to an incredibly high level and that requires classes etc. above and beyond what most people give their own dogs.

And puppies are twats. Any sort of dog ownership involves curtailing your life in some way - be that because of a behavioural issue, or because you need to book kennels so you can go on holidays. They don’t assimilate into your life, you change your life to fit yourself into their lives, their needs and their requirements. A guide dog puppy is going to be just as wanky (being frank) as any other puppy.

Yes I have had a dog but a long time ago. More recently we have had cats and when the last one died we thought it might give us the opportunity to dip our toes back into the water of dog ownership. I suppose our main concern is that in reality the training regime and requirements of the organisation might mean that things like family visits and holidays become difficult or impossible and to hear from people who have been through this experience themselves. Thank you for posting though all thoughts welcome.

We had a really bad experience but I think that was due to our circumstances. My partner and I both work but were keen to help raise a guide dog as my partner is visually impaired and could empathise with the more acutely visually impaired.

The fact that we would need to puppet raise for just a year meant we felt it a good option in terms of long term commitment.

Long story short, we were hectored at by the puppy training co ordinator about the need for basically 24 hours attention of the dog and we just felt we would compromise its training as there were simply some occasions that we couldn't address the dogs needs. We ended upbringing an adorable puppy called Tinker after two weeks which was highly traumatic and ended up with a lot of family tears.

The puppy training coordinator was unsupportive of my partner during the initial bedding in period saying such things as 'it's like having a baby and that's how much attention you need to give it' and after we transferred the puppy basically just blanked all contact with us when we explained the reasoning of our decision.

I'll suppose we will move on but the focus is not on the family or dog but making the dog a suitable animal to be an assistant to a blind person which is fair enough but I doubt we would do it again and we still feel bereft. I suppose the charity wish the number of dogs failing assessment is as small as possible so they do pressure you in terms of training regime.

I don't think we will do it again and feel like are grieving a lost pet.

To respond to an above post we nearly started thinking about quitting jobs over the two weeks we had Tinker to accommodate the demands of the training team. Any indication that you can't entirely meet with the training demands is met with a frown and their is emotional support.

Oh dear that sounds really difficult, I do feel sorry for you. I must admit that one of the reasons we are a little nervous is that we have family scattered all over and frequently need to visit overnight. We are quite prepared to put this on hold for a couple of months to settle a puppy in but would need it to be able to travel and stay with us when visiting after that. It is very difficult to really know what the impact of a small puppy will be especially when combined with the training regime.

Yes, I’ve raised several.
It was overall a positive experience for me. Don’t get me wrong, having a puppy of any kind is hard work. They’re bitey little buggers for the first couple of months and you may not get much sleep - they prefer you to crate train so you sleep next/close to the crate until the pup has settled down and doesn’t need to go out in the night (admittedly all of mine were sleeping through after a week or so so it wasn’t too bad)
It is a full on commitment (puppy class once a fortnight usually) but we took ours all over the place including UK holidays.
In our area we have a puppy raisers WhatsApp group and a boarding co ordinator so if you want a weekend off it’s easy enough to find someone to help out.
It might be a good idea to apply to be a boarder first, so you can help out by caring for other people’s GD pup for short periods. It will get you involved and give you a taste of what it’s like/what’s expected, and you could go to the local GD puppy class and chat to puppy raisers there.
It sounds like you have the right kind of lifestyle for it, so why not get involved and see how it goes?

Thank you so much for that positive message. It was what I was hoping to hear but worried I might not! I know that at the moment there is quite a wait for a puppy once you are approved so we did think we might offer to be a fostered in the meantime to see how things went. Can I just ask if they told you that the puppy classes were mandatory or is it acceptable to miss them if you are on holiday - do they have an advance timetable and are they fairly local? Sorry a lot of questions!

You’re encouraged to go to puppy classes (and it’s fun/supportive) but absolutely fine to miss if you have other plans!
The wait for a puppy varies between areas, where I live there’s a shortage of PRs so they tend to get one quite quickly but I think being a boarder first is a great introduction.
It’s a very supportive group in my area, I’ve made lots of new friends and we all help each other out with advice and looking after each other’s pups. Play dates are popular too, especially when they’re little and can’t go very far (tires them out 😂)
My local puppy class is about 5 miles away but obviously depends where you live, they try and have a couple of options in each district, they hire a village hall for them.

Hi, I have just raised a guide dog puppy for a year and he is leaving us soon.

Overall it has been a positive experience. The puppy is lovely and well behaved (now!) but young puppies are hard work as it is the puppy raisers job to teach them to be house trained and have good manners around the house.

My husband is early sixties I'm slightly younger and we have found we have enough energy for the "job" - apart from it has been a shame for the puppy that we don't have young children at home anymore to play with.

It is encouraged that you take the puppy everywhere with you to aid their socialisation. Hence we have taken him on several UK holidays, family visits etc. We have found 90% of pubs, shops etc happy to accept a guide dog in training even if they don't normally allow dogs.

In some ways it can be hard, though. We take him to Guide dog training classes and when the puppies don't behave very well, sometimes the puppy raisers feel responsible but of course the dogs are young and excitable. If you would like to pm me, I would be happy to answer more questions.

Just wanted to add with regard to the crate training, the organisation do provide a crate (as well as all their food, pay all the vet bills etc) but ultimately, it is down to the puppy raisers whether they crate train or not.

We didn't as I don't agree with it, personally. But lots of the other puppy raisers do crate train. The main thing is that all the puppies should be trained to self settle, whether in a crate or on their bed.

I was given a list of puppy training classes a few months in advance. I tend to go to most of them unless we're away, but some people barely ever attend because they work from home, for example. There will also be occasional home visits to do training with you and your puppy at home. Home visits help with any issues you are having - for example, my puppy was refusing to jump into the car boot and a home visit resolved that problem in an embarrassingly short 5 minutes.

We have recently puppy raised two Guide Dogs pups. Our second was withdrawn a few months ago and we adopted her, at which point we stopped being puppy raisers.

We had a mainly very positive experience. Our Puppy Development Adviser (PDA) - the Guide Dogs local hands-on contact for puppy raisers in each area - was absolutely wonderful. She was positive, kind and endlessly supportive. There are a lot of rules with regard to how to raise the puppies, and she was always brilliant with positively showing us how to bring ‘our’ puppies on to the next stage. We were part of a local WhatsApp group for puppy boarders for if we were going away, and this was very easy to arrange.

I would say that for us the main con was loving the pups too much. Watching our first puppy leave for his new life was incredibly hard, even though he was never ours. I think it could also be slightly pot luck regarding how well you gel with your PDA and how involved and supportive they are, especially of new puppy raisers learning the ropes. It’s certainly a big commitment, with training expected to be built into every day life. And of course baby puppies need constant attention!

Our withdrawn pup is currently sunning herself on the sofa (training and qualified pups are not allowed on the sofa). It’s a nice life for those devoid of responsibilities!

Happy for you and your dog that you got reunited @CatkinToadflax

Ours is leaving us soon and we’re going to miss him a lot. Probably shouldn’t say this but I won’t be too upset if he doesn’t end up qualifying & comes back to us.

We’ll be very proud of him if he does graduate though.

@Twiglets1 she never actually went into training! She’s the most loving, affectionate pup - but the laziest dog anyone has ever met. She could fulfil duties but simply couldn’t be bothered! 😄

And I know the feeling re secretly hoping they’ll come home, mixed with pride for everything they achieve. Best of luck to yours.

Thank you.

Ours is very chilled - not sure he will be up to the job tbh but so far the organisation think he’s doing well so we’ll see.

Yours sounds a perfect family dog x

Thanks to everyone who took the time to post. We have been through a sort of puppy training assessment exercise which was a little dispiriting as the adorable puppy we had for the afternoon wouldn't do anything I tried to get her to do. However the assessor said we had got through and would contact us in a couple of weeks. I think there is quite a wait in our area so we will just see what happens. The other consideration is our car - I have pointed out to DH that there is no way we would get a puppy and enough luggage/dog stuff for even a weekend away in our current vehicle. I guess it might be time to think of roof bars and extra storage compartments. It has surprised me that there is actually quite a lot to consider for an animal that you are only really looking after and will have to give back after a year. On the other hand I do think it will be interesting and hopefully rewarding.

We did puppy training with guide dogs when I was a child. I cannot even begin to explain to you how devasting it is watching that puppy walk out your life. We actually got back 2 dogs as they were abused by their blind person, one dog in particular was the sweetest obedient thing ever so cannot imagine a world where anyone would be that pissed off with her, took a long time for her to feel safe again.

I think it’s rare for a blind person to abuse their dog. The ones I have spoken to at guide dog events have all been incredibly grateful to have their dogs & think the world of them.

I’m not doubting your experience but I really don’t think it’s typical. And I think you should be mindful about the effects of what you are saying on other people. It’s very upsetting for puppy raisers to hear about the guide dogs being abused. As you say, we put a lot into it & we have to trust the process that the dogs will be looked after & loved after they leave us.

So should we just turn a blind eye? Or speak the truth? Because 2 out of our 7 puppies were literally beaten and burnt. It happens.

I'm actually still a massive fan of guide dogs and looked into doing so as an adult, but I cannot put my kids or a dog through that.

Congratulations you’ve probably put potential puppy raisers off doing this very necessary role with that comment.

Everyone I have met associated with the guide dog organisation including several blind people with dogs has been lovely & care about their welfare. And you know the dogs do get regular check ups after they get allocated to a blind person and vet checks.

Now I’m calling bullshit on your last comment. Because why would a blind person beat or burn the dog they rely on to be their constant companion? Of course you could get the odd deranged person but 2 out of 7 puppies? I don’t believe it. I think you are exaggerating and while I have heard of a few puppy raisers getting the puppies back, it’s not because of cruelty it’s because the animals weren’t suitable for being guide dogs for various health or behaviour reasons.

Perhaps in the past there was insufficient consideration of whether the blind person liked dogs. If you want a tool to help everyday life, and aren’t fond of dogs, you might behave badly. Some people are jerks after all. And the supervision worked as the dog was removed and came home.

I read a book years ago about a farmer who struggled to adjust to his guide dog. He was used to more robust farm dogs and the guide dog he was allocated was overly sensitive to his tone. There was a happy ending though!