Sheffield based assistance dog charity’s still in real need of volunteer puppy socialisers

The charity provides live saving assistance dogs for children and adults affected by autism, epilepsy and disability and faces a huge demand for their services. A shortage of volunteers has a real impact on their ability to train more dogs. This impacts on clients such as Sally who is currently waiting for her next epilepsy seizure alert dog, following the passing of her previous support dog Robbie last year.

Sally’s epilepsy began as a child and has affected every aspect of her life. She experiences a very high number of seizures: at least four or five seizures a day. Her adored seizure alert dog Robbie gave her a 55-minute 100 per cent guaranteed warning of all of her oncoming epileptic seizures.

Sally explains “My seizure alert dog not only meant I was safe, it had an incredible improvement in the quality of my life. Reducing the stress and worry of an unpredictable seizure striking at any moment had even helped to reduce the number of seizures I experienced each day. I am now just waiting for my next dog to be available to start training.”

“Those wonderful people who volunteer as puppy socialisers are doing something amazing. They are playing a vital role in creating support dogs that really do save and change people lives.”

Danny Anderson, Fundraising Manager at Support Dogs explains “Volunteer puppy socialisers look after our puppies from 8 weeks old until they are ready to start full time training at 14 months old. We provide all the support our volunteers need from individual ongoing training to covering costs for food, toys, bedding and vet bills. Smaller charity’s like ours are often overlooked and so we are asking for more people in the area to get in touch and find out more about volunteering”

If you would like to find out more please visit www.supportdogs.org.uk/volunteer or phone 0114 261 7800. The charity also has an information seminar about volunteering taking place at 1pm on Monday 6 March.

“Would you like to be a puppy socialiser for Support Dogs? If you live within a 45-minute drive from Sheffield, the charity would love to hear from you. Contact Support Dogs on 0114 2617800, email [email protected] or go to the website Could you be a puppy socialiser? | Support Dogs