THREE mounted photos remind Jennifer Higgins of the three pupils she has sent to the guide dog academy.
From the left, on her kitchen windowsill, are pictures of Zia, Ivan and Yara – the three pups she has helped train, all of them now working to uphold the independence of people with visual impairments.
Bounding around the kitchen, tail wagging as visitors arrive, is pupil No.4: Lois, at six months old, a beautiful black retriever-Labrador cross.
The Toton home that accountant Jennifer shares with her partner Stephen is also home, for the moment to Lois, who was purpose-bred for a working life as a guide dog.
Eighty-five per cent of the pups bred by Guide Dogs at Leamington will eventually make the grade and be allocated to volunteer puppy-walkers like Jennifer, whose task it is to prepare the youngsters for specialist training and life as the "eyes" of blind clients.
"Lois is in the early stages of training," says Jennifer, 47. "The daily routine starts with breakfast and before we go out he will 'go' on command – there is a designated area for that. Then she'll go for a walk on the lead. We go to all the places she can expect to go to during her working career, like supermarkets.
"The other day we caught the bus to Long Eaton and then the train to Nottingham."
It costs £5,000 to take puppies through initial training to the point where they can be sent for specialist work at centres like the one at Atherton, Manchester, which Lois will attend next year.
Fund-raising is an ongoing challenge for Guide Dogs, more formally known as the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. Another £5,000 is needed for advanced training, meaning it takes £10,000 to progress a potential guide dog from birth to its introduction to a client and, if all goes well, a partnership that will last several years.
"We get no Government funding so we rely on individuals and company sponsorships to give us the money we need," says Jo Berry, of the Guide Dogs' monitoring team covering Nottinghamshire.
"We also rely on volunteers like Jennifer to take puppies through the early stages and 'socialise' them."
It's something that gives Jennifer great satisfaction, but there has to be discipline. "She must sleep in her own area, not on a bed," she says. "And she's not allowed on the sofas. She must learn to sit and stay and go to the toilet on command, but it's important that she gets her 'down time' too, like a run in the park."
Like dog-walkers, sponsors can also get satisfaction from supporting the cause, says Jo. If individuals, groups or commercial organisations give the £5,000 for initial training, they get to name the puppy and meet him once and receive a birth certificate and photos of the pup at six weeks and 14 months, when they enter training school, plus reports on his or her progress.
Further benefits are open to donors giving £10,000 to cover all training, and even more for benefactors offering £50,000- plus.
There have to be restrictions. "When choosing a name you can't have silly ones like Adolf," explains Jo Berry. "And we don't allow names that sound like the command for going to the toilet." Out of fairness to all concerned, we have agreed not to share that word with the public.
Local supporters include L'Oreal and Nottingham Trent University. The Royal Centre, which regularly holds collections for Guide Dogs, is thinking about following suit, says access manager Emily Malen.
"We have collections and we have a 'dog sitting' service for people visiting the centre who do not want to take their guide dogs into the auditoriums," she said. "We'd be prepared one day to become sponsors and to get customers involved in naming a dog."
At Toton, Jennifer acknowledges that it is a wrench when it is time for a partly-trained young dog to leave the family home.
"There are always tears," she says as Lois gives her favourite toy a playful chew. "But they are outweighed by the knowledge that what you have done with a dog can help change somebody's life."
She means somebody like Terry Rodgers, of Radcliffe-on-Trent (see panel), who said of his three-year-old guide dog Emett: "Before him I didn't have the confidence to go out on my own. He has completely changed my life."
For more information about the charity and sponsorship and volunteering opportunities, visit www.guidedogs.org .uk