Aim

A training plan, based on new puppies, that will alert their Partner when the phone rings or for the door bell or for a medical condition

Just imagine. If you were a young person; perhaps with Autism or Physically Disabled, and also had hearing difficulties, or an ongoing medical condition like diabetes, how would you feel? How would you cope? And what stress might this put on your Parents?

Changing Lives of young People

For three years now, Helpful Hounds Assistance Dogs have been training dogs within the family to help change the lives of the young people dealing with Autism, Down's Syndrome, Mental issues or Physical Disablement.  The objective is to help them achieve their full potential, socially, educationally and later in work opportunity.

Added worry of hearing difficulties or ongoing medical conditions

However, there are some young people (and adults to be fair) who, in addition to these disabilities also have to deal with hearing difficulties.  Not only can this cause issues in the things that most of us take for granted: The Telephone : The Door bell; a smoke or fire alarm: the School bell but it also makes getting involved with Helpful Hounds in the training process much more difficult. Alerting can also involve conditions such as Diabetes and epilepsy where an early warning can make so much difference.

Assistance Dog Training plus Sign Language

We already teach our dogs both voice and hand cues but we are now developing our programmes to be able to provide more support for the Humans!:

• A programme of sign language tuition will be tested and then rolled out first to our trainers and then to any Volunteers that work with the families. This will allow better communication
• Our new puppies will start their training in the normal way but, in addition will be taught alerting techniques for those that have hearing difficulties or recurring medical conditions such as epilepsy or diabetes.

Please Support us to help do more for the families that we support

Your support will help us to expand our service and give much more support to those families that need it most. And please remember, apart from some Trainers all of our staff are Volunteers which means all donations go direct to the heart of our Charity: The Families/Schools and our wonderful dogs.

What some of our Families have said

"Whisper has changed so many things for the better. She has been life Changing for us all. We can no longer imagine life without her by our side. Without Helpful Hounds we wouldn’t have our yellow bundle of joy and love (not to mention the hair on everything!). I cannot thank Helpful Hounds enough for allowing us to have Whisper as Phoebe’s Assistance Dog".

"Even though Helpful Hounds is a small Charity, we have found that you provide a much thorough support than, say, charities that support just physical disabilities. You are placed to guide people to train Mochi and thus the person with a disability (that can be both mental and physical which as is the case for Anna) is supported for longer and without delay".

"Having a friend, who asks nothing of you, other than cuddles and belly rubs, has been invaluable to my son, and his meltdowns and anxiety have decreased dramatically. Since joining Helpful Hounds’ Owner Training Programme, Dexter is learning new skills, under their guidance, and has become a bit of a local celebrity.  Their support has been constant, and they are always available to offer support and advice".

"Helpful Hounds have held our hands from the get-go. There is still a long way to go but our ball of fluff is now a 9-month furry friend that doesn't leave my daughter's side. He is slowly learning the tricks of his trade and we couldn't imagine life without him". In Leah's words "Leeson makes my heart sing".

This project successfully funded on 16th June 2021