Zesty pooch Zara comes to Janet’s rescue

WHEN Janet Lee, of Barrowby, left home on her disability scooter without her phone, it was a decision she soon regretted.

Her mobility vehicle became stranded on a grassy bank half a mile from home and Janet – who has progressive Multiple Sclerosis – was stuck fast.

Thankfully she was with her disability assistance dog, Zara, who had been trained by the Support Dogs charity to do a special alert bark.

Thanks to Zara’s bark, Janet was eventually located half an hour after becoming stranded, by her son Scott.

And it’s not the only skill the three-year-old German short-haired pointer was taught by skilled Support Dogs staff, to help increase Janet’s independence.

Zara also opens doors and cupboards, lifts the footplates on the 74-year-old’s wheelchair, loads the washing machine and picks up various objects that Janet finds hard to reach.

Janet, who lives with her husband Philip in Barrowby, near Grantham, lost the use of her legs around 20 years ago, shortly before her MS diagnosis.

“Doctors got me back on my feet and I was fine for another 10 years,” said Janet, a former bridal and underwear factory employee who later went on to work for her husband’s landscape gardening business.

“But I’ve gradually got worse as time’s gone by.”

Zara bounded into Janet’s life three years ago, after Janet “pestered” Philip for another family dog.

After noticing a number of assistance dogs in their local area, Janet enquired about having Zara trained with Support Dogs, a Yorkshire-based charity which trains and provides assistance dogs to help autistic children and adults with epilepsy or a physical disability to live safer, more independent lives.

After a few months, Janet and Zara were accepted onto the charity’s Disability Assistance programme, and in February this year, they began their training.

And following eight months of hard work, they have now successfully graduated as a Support Dogs partnership.

Janet said: “She will pick things like the TV remote, glasses, pens, papers, anything that I drop. She just does it and never thinks twice about it. If Phil’s not there, I feel confident she would help me.

“It’s absolutely brilliant to have graduated as a partnership. Support Dogs is amazing and they have helped us so much.”

Philip added: “Zara is just awesome. If something is wrong with Janet, Zara will bark and fetch me.

“She’s got a talent that other gun dogs haven’t got, and she has been fantastic on Support Dogs’ training programme.”

Support Dogs instructor Jemima McLanaghan put Zara and Janet through their paces before they successfully graduated.

Jemima said: “Zara is soft as a brush and a very sweet girl. She was amazing to train.

“She’s got a lot of good self control already and very good basic obedience.

“Because they are a hunting breed, she’s a real ‘sniffer’, but she actually listens really well to the ‘leave it’ command. She was great around shops and was so clever at taskwork – she picked it up really quickly.”

To find out more about the work of Support Dogs, please visit www.supportdogs.org.uk or call 0114 2617800.