“Ruby had a good first week at the training centre in Banbury, and this week we have begun to venture off site. Ruby and I have started short walks in a quiet residential area in a nearby village, which Ruby seems to really enjoy.

What I am looking for at this stage is to see how Ruby copes with the various distractions that the outdoors presents, and is she has any particular interests - such as chasing after cats!

Building a relationship with Ruby is really important, so this runs alongside everything we do. Ruby has started to recognise me now, which is really nice.

The training sessions are continuing every day, teaching Ruby her initial items of task work using reward based training methods. Ruby can pick up a dumbbell toy and pass it to me, which is the start of learning a retrieve. When she is matched with an adult or child with disabilities, Ruby needs to be able to retrieve dropped items such as keys and wallets and pass them back.

Ruby can also now push on a target board on the floor. In the later stages of her training, Ruby will learn to transfer this skill to pushing disabled access buttons on shop doors and the buttons at pedestrian crossings.

I’m really pleased with how well Ruby is settling into the centre and taking to the task work. We are establishing a bond now and becoming good friends!”