Otis has made a great start

Otis has made a great start in life!

He's living with Rachel, a volunteer puppy socialiser. These are lovely people who look after our sponsor puppies for the first year of life. They give them basic training, take them to puppy class, and generally provide a loving, stable home for them.

So, let's meet Rachel:

Rachel tells us a bit more about herself: "Our trainer Heather took this photo when I picked Otis up from The Grange. He was just eight weeks old."

It looks like love at first sight, with a friendly lick from Otis.

Rachel continues: "I grew up with a dog but have never had my own dog, so it should be 'interesting'! He is currently part of our family, my husband Jonny and our four children, Isobel, Ethan, Jacob and Juliette. Otis is a very affectionate puppy and loves being with someone, fortunately with four children he is never far from a cuddle.

Here's Otis receiving said cuddle:

Rachel continues: "This is my youngest daughter, Juliette, the main reason we have Otis. She has begged us for the last four years for us to get a puppy but I’m not sure about the long-term commitment so this was our compromise. As you can imagine, Otis gets used to being handled a lot. He doesn’t even mind being woken up, as long as it’s for a cuddle."

Plenty of cuddles for Otis, it would seem!

As well as cuddles, Otis has been introduced to other fun new experiences, such as toys.

Back to Rachel: "This is Otis with his favourite toy, Rabbit. He sleeps with Rabbit every night. In the morning, after he has been outside to toilet, he brings Rabbit with him so I can play with them both."

What a nice daily routine!

Otis has also discovered cardboard boxes, as do many of our puppies.

"Otis has been through a range of cardboard boxes both to chew and sleep in during the day. At this stage he could fit nicely into a shoebox before he shredded that one and we had to move up a size."

He does fit into that box very neatly, don't you think? And look, there's another toy for him to play with!

And finally, just to show that Otis is learning as well as having fun (they're the same thing really), here's a video Rachel took of her children helping Otis learn to 'wait'.

The idea is that we want our puppies to understand that they don't have to pester for treats. If they make the 'right' decision - in this case, waiting patiently - then they know the treat will come. Wrong decisions are just ignored. We call this 'reward-based training' and it works extremely well.

So, you can see that Otis is happy to wait for a treat placed in front of him because he knows he doesn't have to ask. Rachel's son does that movement to try and distract him (sometimes our trainers do star jumps!) but no, he's calm and collected and focused on the treat. We call this 'impulse control'.

And look, he does it perfectly! Followed by a treat, a fuss, and a very waggly tail.

As we said, Otis has made a wonderful start, with a very welcoming family. This is thanks to you for supporting him. So, on behalf of all of us, thank you for sponsoring Otis.