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Coco’s forever home

Coco and her new Italian pointer play pal, Nonna sitting off lead in the woods together.

Although we have a world-class breeding and training programme, not every pup will be suited to becoming a guide dog or buddy dog. Occasionally, dogs need to be taken out of training for their best interests and those of any potential future owners.

Coco has always been a sensitive girl, but she really started to struggle over the last few months. We noticed that she could become overly anxious when catching certain scents when out and about, which meant she had some trouble completing her training walks. She was also finding it difficult to spend time on her own and preferred to have people always close by. Because of these issues, we’re not confident that Coco could guide a potential future owner consistently, or that she would be comfortable being left for short periods of time if her owner needed to attend an appointment alone. Although Coco’s trainer Rose spent lots of time trying to help her overcome these issues, she continued to display high levels of anxiety, so we’ve made the very difficult decision to take her out of the training programme.

We are sad to share this news, but we hope you can understand that Coco’s well-being is our number one priority. So, we are delighted to tell you that Coco has already been rehomed and is living happily in her forever home with Hans and Tricia.

Since joining their family, Coco has been much more relaxed, and has fit into their routine perfectly. She’s been enjoying free runs in the local woods with her new Italian pointer play pal, Nonna, and has even made a new friend in their beautiful cat, Kaaski!

Thank you for all your support through sponsoring Coco.

We can’t thank you enough for your generosity; we rely on donations to continue our life-changing work, which means without you, we couldn't be Guide Dogs! Thank you.

Pupdate 6 - Coco has arrived at training school!

Hello, I’m Rose, Coco’s trainer.

I’ve been working at Guide Dogs for about six years and I love it! I love being able to work so closely with the dogs every day and it’s so rewarding to see when they master new skills.

I’m pleased to say that since your last Pupdate, when Coco had a few setbacks with her health and in her training, she’s settled into training school really well. She’s such a sweet, affectionate pup and always eager to learn.

Settling in

To help Coco’s transition to training school feel a little bit easier, she came in for some trial sessions so that the different sights and smells wouldn’t be quite so daunting. This really helped her adapt to the new environment; now she settles really well and will just lie down for a snooze! She’s still building her confidence, but I can tell that with every new day she comes out of her shell a little bit more.

Coco is a very sociable pup – she loves nothing more than saying hello to everyone around her. I’m currently working with a trainee trainer before they become fully qualified, which means that Coco has two of us around to give her lots of attention!

New skills

As Coco is still at an early stage in her training school journey, we’re introducing her to the first guiding skills that she’ll need to know. One of the things we’re working on together is ‘touch’, which involves holding out a fist with the verbal cue ‘touch’. The aim is for the dog to touch their nose to the fist, and they’ll be rewarded with a treat. Once Coco has mastered this skill, it will form part of target training, such as finding a crossing box so that a person with sight loss could easily find the button to safely cross a busy road. We’ve also started working on Coco’s platform work, which involves walking to a platform and stopping with all four paws on the platform. This is a really important skill to learn because it shows the dogs where to stop and gives them a good target to focus on. Coco had been learning this with her Puppy Raiser, Fran, and I’m really pleased with how well she’s doing so far. She’s even able to stop without relying on a lead to help her!

Looking forward

Over the next few months, we will introduce Coco to all of the guiding skills that she will need to become a life-changing guide dog. I’m also looking forward to introducing her to her training harness, which will make Coco identifiable in public as a guide dog in training. Once she’s comfortable with her harness we can introduce her to new things when we’re out on training walks, like kerb work. This is where a dog stops near the pavement edge to warn their owner about the road; this helps a person with sight loss to stay safe when they’re out and about.

Thank you so much for all of your support for Coco in her journey to become a guide dog. Although it is taking her a little longer than we’d hoped to complete her training, we’re really proud of how far she’s come. As she’s just started at training school, we’ll update you as soon as we have news of her progress.

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