Talking scales
Royal Canin saves guide dog owner 340 hours of counting kibble!
Teresa lives in the West Midlands with her guide dog Baden and is one of 200 guide dog owners participating in a weight management pilot scheme. Our partner Royal Canin has funded the provision of digital talking scales to help people with sight loss accurately weigh their dog's food to help manage weight control in their guide dogs.
Before getting the scales, it took Teresa a minimum of 10 minutes every day to count out 200 pieces of kibble individually for Baden. That is 61 hours a year or 427 hours in total since she got Baden seven years ago! Now it takes Teresa a fraction of the time to weigh out his food each day.
When asked about the difference that the scales had made to her life, Teresa was full of praise, "The scales are brilliant; actually, they are amazing. I love them and I am so grateful to Royal Canin."
The reason Teresa counted the kibble by hand before was that she understood the importance of feeding Baden the right amount and didn't want to make a mistake either overfeeding or underfeeding. However, this sometimes proved tricky. Teresa explained, "If I was distracted by the phone or doorbell when counting, I sometimes had to start all over again. If I spilled any kibble, I wasn't sure if it had gone into the bowl or hit the floor and so I had to recount! I've never needed to worry about hoovering up any spillages though - Baden is always more than happy to do the cleaning up!"
For the last six years of having my guide dog, I've been manually counting out 200 kibble pieces a day to make up Baden's meal allowance. I can't use standard kitchen scales and didn't want to rely on the tin or cup method to feed my dog correctly - so these talking scales are such a huge help to me!
Martyn Cherry, PRO National Key Account Manager for Royal Canin said, "It feels so good that as a business we continue to make a difference in people's lives by supporting this simple task that we take for granted."
The scales have been a game-changer for all. Baden gets the right amount of food, Teresa gets back 49 hours each year as the food now takes a fifth of the time to weigh out, and her partner Carl has benefitted as Teresa has been able to weigh ingredients and can now make lots of yummy cakes for the first time!
The pilot forms part of a larger initiative for Royal Canin, and VET and PRO cross-pillar collaboration in which they're supporting our weight management programme by providing personal daily dietary advice, literature, seminars and a new Academy portal for our National Welfare team.
It feels so good that as a business we continue to make a difference in people's lives by supporting this simple task that we take for granted.
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