Berry’s brilliant Bed & Breakfast!

There’s plenty going on in Berry’s life. Here are some fantastic photos of his time with his Bed and Breakfast volunteers – Jen, Dave and Alexandra.

We have volunteers who do all sorts of amazing work for us. Some help out at our training centre in Buckinghamshire by doing some gardening, admin, or taking dogs for walks. Others are spread right across the UK, looking after our pups in their first year (called puppy socialising), and then when they’re at our training centre during evenings and weekends, called Bed and Breakfast volunteering. This is how Jen, Dave and Alexandra recently helped Berry.

We adore our volunteers, and simply could not function without them. They seem to enjoy themselves quite a bit too! If you’d like to be a volunteer, you can find out more on our website.

Anyway, back to Berry…! “If you had a tick list of your perfect dog then Berry is it”, says Jennifer. “He loved cuddles, he was so well behaved, and he was great around children.”

Here he is with Alexandra. They look so happy together!

Berry watches the ball in Alexandra’s hand intently…

Here they are just spending time together messing about in the river!

Jennifer says: “One of his favourite things to do was to climb on the trampoline and run around in circles, he either did this on his own or with Alexandra.”

And then, well, we suspect this is how he recovered…

Jennifer ends: “He is good at everything and loves everyone. So many people stopped us when we were out saying what a lovely dog he is. When we said he is a hearing dog we couldn’t get away, and spent many an hour talking to strangers.”

This is great for Berry’s future. We want our dogs to be happy in the company of all sorts of people, in all environments, so that they can accompany deaf people wherever they go.

It’s also interesting to see how people just like to chat about him. This is a big aspect of how our amazing dogs help deaf people. Deafness can be an isolating disability, in which people find it easier to shut themselves away rather than try to communicate with people. As well as helping deaf people in practical ways, a hearing dog also breaks down barriers, helping deaf people get back out into their community. It looks like Berry is going to be great at this.

So, here’s to Jen, Dave and Alexandra, our brilliant volunteers, and to Berry, our friendly, fun, cuddly canine!

Don’t forget, his progress has all been down to you, his sponsor. So, thank you from Berry, and thank you from all of us at Hearing Dogs for Deaf People!