Our education and community officers spend their days travelling to schools, youth groups and community centres, spreading our message of dog safety.

Our canine carers spend their days looking after all the dogs on site.

Unfortunately our paths don’t cross too often, and as you can see, our jobs are very different.

Our South East Education Officer Laura has been hounding (see what we did there?) Education Manager Dawn for a delegated day shadowing a canine carer in the centre to see what really goes on in the Dogs Trust kennels. Well, her dreams came true last month and she trekked up to the centre to see what looking after the dogs REALLY involves.

Laura the Canine Carer

Briefing was at 8am sharp (full disclosure, three M50 crashes made Laura 3 minutes late, and she HATES being late so not the best kick-off). Shortly following that, it was time to hit the ground running by helping Canine Carer Lydia to feed the dogs, then deep clean the kennels, front and back. This involves removing the bedding, manually picking up any and all poops, then sloshing a bucket of disinfectant on the ground, scrubbing it clean, then squeegeeing the floor dry. Then it’s time to decorate the kennel with fresh bedding and toys, and let the pooches back in.

What’s next? The most fun part! Taking the dogs for their walks! 😊 First Lydia and Laura checked the board for who’s been allocated to them, then went through and took them out one by one. Some dogs were “just” walked, some played games, some had kennel time, a mixed bag! 😊

Back to block then to organise the evening and next morning feeds; labelling bowls and weighing out the different portions for each dog. One dog was even on a weight loss plan, which made Laura giggle. The kennels were given one more spot check and clean, before it was time to fold laundry (a literal never-ending task) and de-brief before calling it a day at 5pm. Laura’s foster dog Rose had a great time sniffing her trousers for ages after she got home 😊

 Laura was able to find a few spare minutes to have a bit of kennel time with the lovely Shelby

Laura has always appreciated the work that the canine carers do but now she can first-hand preach about how hard their job is, and how they really are the cogs that keep the Dogs Trust machine running. The next day she could barely wash her hair, her back and arms hurt so much.

Thanks to all the operations team for making Laura feel so welcome.