Ned according to Sylvia

We recently told you about how Ned was doing, especially regarding awards – and food! Fortunately food is a really good way to train them. Treats are what motivate pups to learn, as well as plenty of praise. To a pup, it’s all just great fun.

Ned continues to have a wonderful time living with Peter and Sylvia, his volunteer socialisers. Sylvia has plenty to say about him, so here’s Ned in her words!

“Ned has a special friend, called Lara, a German girl who is staying with us. Lara does a lot of his training with us as well, which is helped along with Ned’s favourite treat – home-made liver sausage.”

Home-made liver sausage! A rare treat!

You can see Ned with Lara below. They love spending time together. As you can see, he’s really grown! He can just about get onto her lap, but only just. Lara looks very happy, and that’s something we believe is very important. Happy people train happy dogs, which means we will ultimately have happy recipients too.

“He has a very nice nature. He is leaving his puppy stage and now becoming a teenager. He is developing into a nice-looking young dog with all the usual traits of a Labrador. His training is going very well doing all the basic commands, and he is very good at recall when we are out and about.”

It’s important that Ned is good at his recall. When he’s eventually matched with a deaf recipient, he will need to come back to them when they call him or blow a whistle, no matter where they are. There are so many potential distractions for our pups, they need to learn that the recipient should be the centre of their attention.

“He enjoys his daily walks and loves to explore different places. His regular walks are through the local woods and along the river Itchen where he recently discovered the joys of jumping in the water. Sea water at the beach is not the same – he will run in but very quickly comes out, so he’s not sure about waves!”

This is so funny – we have pictures of other sponsor pups doing exactly the same thing in the sea! It must be a sponsor pup thing…

“As for toys he will play with almost anything you give but his favourites are a couple of soft toys he has had right from the start, a dog and bear. He also likes soft squeeze balls.”

Cue a cute picture of Ned with his toy bear. He really is becoming a bit of a teenager, growing up but still attached to his puppy toys.

And that’s all for Ned! We did call him our friendly little chap, and said he might become a friendly big chap. It looks like that might be happening. But he’s still just a puppy at heart.

Finally, thank you so much for sponsoring Ned. Your support has made it possible for him to start on the journey towards becoming an amazing hearing dog…