New kid on the block

In just a few weeks Tana (pronounced Tanner) will touch down in New Zealand to join the Perfect Partners team.

Tana comes to us from Service Canines of Montana, and is a sponsored dog. Tana is extra special as he is a prison pup, so not only is he trained to help his new human partner, but he has also been part of the rehabilitation of a person in a US prison.

Tana has already shown alerting skills for his new handler by alerting to seizures. He has also proven to have some skill with other people - even though it wasn't clear what he was doing until afterwards. Tana was "bugging" a family member where he was staying, and it was only after he was pulled away that the rest of the family realised that Tana's new "friend" was suffering a major diabetic hypo.

There is already a picture of Tana on the register of dogs section of our website if you would like to check it out. He is an American Golden Retriever so he is a rich auburn colour rather than the gold or cream colour that most Kiwi's are used to, but he looks like a real charmer.

Questions and answers

We have had quite a few emails recently from people who are interested in having dogs trained, or who are trying to find out if a dog would be suitable for them. This has been an interesting experience as a wide variety of people have been approaching us for advice or training support.

If you are contemplating having a dog trained then please feel free to contact us to see if you would like to work with us. Finding a trainer is not only about finding an organisation that trains the kind of dog that you need, it is also about finding a trainer that you feel comfortable working with, and who uses methods that you are comfortable with.

We already have a waiting list of people who are interested in having Perfect Partners train a dog for them, or who are interested in being assessed to come under the organisation once we have Public Access sorted.

If you are even remotely thinking about having us train a dog for you then we would recommend that you contact us sooner rather than later.

If you send us an email and don't hear back from us within a week then please feel free to email us again, or to resend the same email. We had a few technical issues with our email last year, and we only found out when an email from a client was not received. We always answer emails, even if it is just to say that we are unable to help.

Thank you for all the emails we have received and the comments and photos we have received through Facebook. Please feel free to post comments on the blog, or on Facebook if you have thoughts or ideas that you would like to share.

Happy New Year!

2010 is finally here, and hopefully this year will be even better than 2009.

Last year we had Toby complete his training as a Companion Dog, and we made contact with a huge range of people through this blog, and our Facebook page. We have also found local communities to be hugely supportive when we were out and about with training, and we had quite a bit of success with fundraising this past year.

In December we also had polo shirts made up so that people can recognise us when we are out and about working with the dogs.

2010 looks like it will be an interesting year. Some of the team will be attending a seminar about dog training in February, we hope to send at least one person to the Companion Animal Conference in October, and of course we hope to move further with Public Access so that we can help more of the people that have been contacting us looking for support.

Thank you to everyone who supported us in 2009, hopefully you will continue to support us in 2010.

If you have any comments or questions please feel free to add a comment to the blog or drop us an email contact_ppadt@yahoo.com