Many yappy returns to dog Meadow

Meadow, a trainee assistance dog with the Sheffield-based Support Dogs charity, turns two this month.

It is the latest milestone in a 20-year partnership between the good cause and Meadowhall, which as her sponsor got to give the white Labrador her name.

The shopping centre – located a stone’s throw from Support Dogs’ training centre – is a long-term, much-valued supporter of the assistance dogs charity, which trains and provides dogs to help autistic children, as well as adults with epilepsy or a physical disability, to live safer, more independent lives.

As well as providing financial support, the centre is also used to run essential training exercises which have helped the dogs become comfortable in different environments and situations, including busy areas such as the Oasis Dining Quarter, the lifts and stairs.

Meadow has been busy honing her skills – which could mean the difference between life and death for her human match.

She has been earmarked for the charity’s innovative seizure alert programme, which trains dogs to give a 100 per cent reliable alert to an epileptic seizure up to an hour before it happens.

Around 1,000 people with epilepsy die each year and research suggests that most of these deaths are sudden and unexpected. The warning provided by a seizure alert dog means that a client can remove themselves from any danger and have a seizure in a safe environment.

With the confidence that they will be alerted in advance of any seizure, Support Dogs clients can live more independently. Day-to-day tasks, including going to the shops, cooking, ironing and having a bath, which would previously have been hazardous, are now manageable on their own and in safety.

Support Dogs is the only organisation in the UK to provide and train seizure alert dogs.

Meadow, whose sisters Skye and Lyra are also trainee support dogs, has already been matched to a client.

Describing the traits that make Meadow ideal for such an important role, Support Dogs trainer Joe Dickinson said: “She’s very confident. She’s pretty bomb-proof for this programme, really.

“She is turning two and has quite a bit of growing up to do, but already, she is proving to be a fast learner.”

Darren Pearce, centre director at Meadowhall, said: “We’re hugely proud of our ongoing partnership with Support Dogs, and to have been able to support the charity’s vital work across the local community over the past two decades.

“It’s brilliant to hear that Meadow will now go on to make such an incredible difference to someone’s life, and we wish her the best of luck in her journey.”

Meadow already has basic skills, such as picking up and fetching objects.

She has also been trained to “nudge” the client, to make them aware of an impending seizure.

“The nudge she would use as an alert is really nice and really strong,” said Joe.

She is also good off-lead and around other dogs and although she was initially excitable, as she has matured, her impulse control has improved.

Support Dogs does not use kennels, instead relying on an army of volunteer doggy foster carers who look after the dogs when they’re not at the charity’s training centre, in Brightside Lane.

Meadow is staying with a local family.

During her free time, she adores mud.

Joe said: “Because she’s white, something innate in her says she’s got to get herself black!”

As a treat, she loves Primula cheese.

What Joe loves about her is: “She’s just so happy and so enthusiastic about everything. When she first came to me, she was described as being ‘as excited about a pebble as she would be about a roast chicken’. She just loves everything.”

To find out more about the work of Support Dogs, please visit www.supportdogs.org.uk