Westbury Probus report

Chairman, Chris Saunders opened the meeting  in his own inimitable style. After the usual house notes, he introduced the speaker, Mike White.

Mike explained that his subject is the charity,  Hounds for Heroes. The purpose of Hounds for Heroes is to provide specially trained assistance dogs to injured and disabled  men and women of both the UK Armed Forces and the Emergency Services. Mike explained that this leads to an enhanced quality of life for their clients.

Assistance dogs, all labradors or retrievers, are picked at the age of five  months in what is a difficult process. After training many of the chosen dogs are stood down as not suitable due to the lack of ability to learn the 50 – 60 commands required.

At eight weeks the chosen dogs are sent off to ‘puppy parents’. These people train the dogs for a period of 18 months. The dogs learn to walk in many different environments until they are ‘bombproof’.  The dogs are also taught to react to the essential commands such as opening doors, putting washing in the machine, reacting to emergency situations, collecting money from ATM’s, picking up items from the floor and assisting with the shopping in the local supermarket. In addition to this the dogs provide much needed companionship with the client.

Mike explained that the dogs ownership is retained by the charity during the dogs working life. The charity covers all expenses for the dogs including vets fee’s etc. Each dog costs £30,000 during it’s working life. At the age of ten the dogs are retired and go to new parents for which there is a long waiting list.

Mike made it clear, in the light of some charities, that the admin cost from public contributions is only 10% leaving 90% going to the purchase and the training of the dogs.

Mike suggested that if we wanted even more information we could go to the charities web site, enquiries@houndsforheroes.

Chairman Saunders thanked Mike for his excellent talk and there was a large round of applause from the members present. The meeting then closed. Next meeting 7th February. AGM.