Paws for Good Cause at St Mary’s School

Children at St Mary’s School have chosen Guide Dogs for the Blind as their charity this year and were lucky last week to get a visit from Ella and her dog Jasper at their assembly.

Jill Stewart from the Guide Dogs for the Blind also came along to tell the children about the charity, how the dogs are trained, how they help guide the vision impaired and what’s like to have a guide dog.

The children asked lots of great questions including are children allowed to have guide dogs and what does Jasper like to do when he’s not working.

Jill told the children that children as young as 9 can now have guide dogs and below this age they can have a buddy dog.  Ella told the children that Japser just loves to lie on his rug and loves having visitors and gets very excitable when he’s not on his harness guiding her.

Jill said afterwards, “The charity gets no government support.  Fundraising at this level is critical as most of our legacies have dried up.”

Headmaster, Rob Harmer said to the children, “It’s been a fascinating talk and we need to think of more ways we can raise money for this great charity.”

Pupil, Ava aged 9 said, “The most interesting thing I learnt was how the harness worked and how strong and secure it is.  It’s not like a normal lead.  I thought Ella might say that when Jasper isn’t working he would be playful but perhaps he’s tired of working.  We’re making and decorating pillows to raise money to start with.”

Ella afterwards said, “All the children were really good at listening especially the nursery children and they had lots of interesting questions.”