Ned’s food and awards – your questions answered

We recently received a lovely comment from the 3rd Cowley Brownies, Oxford:

We loved getting the update on our sponsored puppy – thank you. It’s really good to be able to see more photos on the blog. Please may we ask two questions? 1 – What exactly does Ned eat in one day? 2 – What does he have to do to pass his Three Star award? Thank you.

Thank you 3rd Cowley Brownies, because they turned out to be really good questions!

First things first: what does Ned eat?

Well, we got in touch with Peter and Sylvia, his volunteer socialisers who are looking after Ned during his first year, and this is what they said:

Ned and food? Well Ned is like any growing puppy when it comes to food. It is very important to him and he knows the time of day when he is due to be fed! If we are slow in putting his food down he will remind us that it is time, by sitting down and staring at us or following us around looking very sad.

Ned is fed three times a day and uses a food plate that has spacers in to slow him down when he eats. When he has been particularly good he will get a treat, and his favourite is liver cake which is homemade.

He trains very well and will always look  for a treat when he has done what is asked of him. He is very gentle, taking the treat from your hand. The food he eats is a special dog food which is a dried food.

They also sent us this photo of Ned contemplating his next meal:

Secondly, regarding his training, well he’s done really well by passing his Two Star award, as we told you in his last update. In the Three Star we build on that work, but we start giving him the opportunity to make choices about how to behave. We keep it interesting by challenging him. It’s a bit like being at school – or indeed, the Brownies – as it would get boring if he did the same thing every day. And treats certainly help to keep him keen on learning new techniques and skills!

So, what will Ned be doing exactly? Well really, we build on the skills he acquired for his Two Star award, except that we start to focus on specific areas:

• Give him more distractions and temptations. We’ll teach Ned that he can’t always have what he wants, when he wants it. This is simply so that he’ll behave well with his deaf recipient. To do this, we practice something called impulse control, and you can see plenty of pictures and videos about this on our blog. We’ll also try to distract him, for example by doing star jumps while he’s practising his ‘waits’. He might think we’re behaving a bit oddly, but it’ll all go towards helping him maintain his concentration no matter what’s going on around him.
• Build up his resilience. The world can be a scary place, especially to a small pup, and the last thing we want is for Ned to feel afraid. We want him to enjoy life as a hearing dog, taking his deaf recipient happily wherever and whenever they want to go. So, we’re going to take Ned for fun visits to local places and events, building up his confidence when out and about. This is when he’ll first wear his ‘I’m learning to be a Hearing Dog’ jacket, which always attracts attention and praise, which he’ll thoroughly enjoy! If you live near our training centre in Buckinghamshire, look out for our trainers with our pups, in local towns such as Thame.
• Focus on his strengths. Like people, every puppy is different, so we start tailoring the training more, focusing on what a puppy needs help with, while building on their strengths. We told you that Ned is great at recall – that is, coming back to Sylvia or Peter when they call him or use a whistle – but he needs to learn not to nibble their toes in the morning to wake them up. So, we’ll make sure he continues to be a superstar at recall, but learn to wake people up in a more suitable manner!

And that’s it! Again, thank you to the 3rd Cowley Brownies, Oxford for their lovely comments and questions. If any of you have any more to ask, then go ahead!