Assistance Dogs and School Dogs

Our Helpful Hounds Assistance Dogs are trained to support special needs students as well as families dealing with autism, Down’s syndrome, physical disabilities and a range of mental health conditions. Helpful Hounds uses donations, such the money raised from The Dorset Plane Pull, to help us expand the number of families and schools we can support.” Families like Ella's and the ones you can see in our photos:

"Ella has learned how to be a dog trainer with Helpful Hounds and walking with Ziggy, concentrating on the training focuses Ella’s mind and knowing Ziggy is there with her keeps Ella’s anxiety levels down. She is so much calmer and ticcing less when with Ziggy. She has walked around shops, sat in cafes and been to parks, all things that I wasn’t sure would happen again. Ziggy has given Ella a reason to get out of bed, previously Ella didn’t see the point in living, she now wakes up excited to see Ziggy. Ziggy even goes to hospital and in the ambulance to support Ella.”

Community Dogs

We now have a specialist team of Community Dogs that visit Care Homes, Nursing Homes, very often visiting residents with dementia. The Community Dogs will also visit Schools Colleges and Universities with the ability to deliver workshops for younger students as an introduction to the safe handling of dogs

“The helpful Hounds have been visiting our residents here for coming up to 2 years and the residents absolutely love their visits, many of our residents have always had pets and miss the interactions that you can only get from a pet. The smile on the faces of the residents tell us all we need to know about how much they enjoy their visits and interactions with the dogs. Peter and his team are friendly and empathetic to the needs of our residents and will visit individuals in their room for them to have 121 time with their lovely well trained dogs. One resident who doesn’t walk much took the lead and took the dog for a walk, he was so animated afterwards and gave him a huge sense of purpose and achievement.”