Molly sports a new spring look

Molly’s had a bit of a spring clean. This has involved quite a major makeover. The curls and tufts have gone, and Molly now sports a much leaner look. Spots are most definitely in this season!

This is how she looked before the makeover…

… and this is Molly after.

Definitely more suitable for the catwalk – or, in Molly’s case, the dogwalk perhaps?

Molly is still having a wonderful time living with her volunteer socialiser Alison. We told you in the previous post all about how Alison was showering her with love and praise (and Christmas gifts such as moo-cow blankets), while also teaching her basic obedience and soundwork training.

She also takes Molly out and about, and you can see below how Molly is becoming accustomed to all kinds of situations, in this case a plane preparing to take off.

The above photo shows Molly with Jo, another volunteer, at a local airfield to watch a friend sky dive for charity. She has also been to watch indoor go-karts, so plenty of experiences for Molly to become used to. Our volunteer socialisers work very closely with Hearing Dogs staff to make sure we are doing the absolute best for our pups. By making sure Molly is happy wherever she goes, we can be confident she will be able to accompany a deaf person wherever they want to go too.

Molly’s training also continues apace. Alison is helping her work towards her Three Star Award now (these are awards that enable us to tell how well a puppy is doing). Among other things, this will assess how well Molly performs a nose-nudge. This is how our clever canines alert deaf people – they give them a gentle but insistent nudge with their nose to tell them there’s an important sound that they need to know about. It’s quite a nice feeling getting a friendly nudge from a little wet nose!

We will also test how well Molly reacts when Alison performs chores such as hoovering. She needs to be relaxed, rather than chasing the vacuum cleaner or barking. She also needs to alert Alison when the hoover is on. Given how hairy Spaniels can get, this could be quite a frequent task! You can see below that she really doesn’t have a problem being relaxed around the hoover!

Alison is also helping Molly develop her thinking skills. Our pups need to ‘learn how to learn’, by focusing on the task in hand and not giving up if they don’t ‘get it’ first time.

So, hopefully in the next printed update we’ll be able to tell you all about her Three Star success. For now however, thank you for helping her get this far. She couldn’t have done it without your support.