Ms Nuala Geraghty:

Yes. Each family signs an agreement at the end of the training where they agree that the dog has to be minded. They first go through a week of training. They come to us and they train with and learn about the dog before they take the animal home. After that, we follow up with them in the home environment doing what we call aftercare. We do the attachments with the dog, so there would be four or five visits soon after the dog goes home. Then we would follow up on a yearly basis to make sure that the dog is being well looked after regarding weight and grooming. Obviously, the dogs are ambassadors for the charity so it is important that they are kept well. It is important that the dogs work well and that they are not stressed. Later on then as a dog gets older we would check if it still able to cope with the workload. The welfare of our dogs is very important to our organisation.