Here you can keep up to date with all your pup’s latest photos and videos of their journey to become a life-changing guide dog. We hope you enjoy watching your puppy transform into an incredible companion for someone who is blind or partially sighted. Thank you so much for your support; amazing people like you help make these special partnerships possible.

Pupdate 3

Hello, it’s Mary and Keith here, Poppy’s Puppy Walkers. We are excited to update you on how this beautiful girl is progressing.

Poppy has matured a lot over the last few months and will soon be going off to Guide Dogs Training School. We’ve been spending lots of time making sure she is prepared for the next chapter in her journey to become a guide dog.

Looking to the future

Much of our time over recent months has been spent working alongside our Puppy Training Supervisor, ensuring that Poppy has mastered the more complex commands that we mentioned in her last Pupdate. For example, the ‘find the chair’ command, in which we ask Poppy to locate an empty seat for us. We had a very proud moment when visiting the doctor’s surgery recently, where Poppy very quickly located an empty chair for us in the waiting room. It’s great to see her apply these skills to real life situations, which she would do to help a person with visual impairment one day.

We’ve been encouraging Poppy to take her time when going up and down stairs. At training school, she will learn to stop at kerbs and stairs, and so teaching her to recognise changes in ground height will be very beneficial to her future learning.

Overcoming challenges

We are pleased to say that Poppy has now overcome her fear of larger traffic, such as tractors. We have spent a lot of time walking down busy pavements and sitting and watching the traffic go by. It’s been very rewarding to see our hard work pay off, as she is no longer fazed by any traffic noise. We’ve also seen a huge improvement in Poppy’s focus levels. The use of food treats and toys have encouraged her to keep her eyes on us and she no longer gets distracted by people walking past. This is vital for her future as a guide dog as she will need to remain focused when guiding her future owner.

Funny quirks

We love having Poppy at home, she is such fun to be around. She still drops her toys on your lap when she wants to play, and she has a big green dog toy which she loves to carry in her mouth as she zooms around the garden. We love the photo below of her playing with it! it We have also realised that she loves playing with leaves, often bringing them into the house if she can! Poppy’s grooming sessions are still a firm favourite and she adores being pampered, often rolling onto her back and stretching her legs out!

Poppy has developed a funny habit which makes us laugh, if one of us call out to each other in the house, she will go and sit in front of the person as if to ensure they do what they are told!

We can’t wait to see Poppy start training school. Look out for your next Pupdate in June to see how she’s getting on!

Poppy's latest video