March 2013 Recipients
Mobility Dogs Assistance Trust, based in Auckland, has received $1,000 from the Mazda Foundation to assist with the care of their puppies.
The charitable trust provides people living with long term physical disabilities with a dog to aid their mobility.
Mobility dogs are trained in a range of special tasks to be able to functionally assist people with severe disabilities and are trained to meet their owner’s specific needs. This can range from barking for help, to paying for purchases across the counter or taking shoes and socks off.
The puppies undergo intensive training to ensure that they can meet their owner’s demands which requires them to stay at the Trust’s kennel and training facility for long periods of time. Bedding needs to be changed daily in order to ensure the dogs are healthy and well cared for. The grant from the Mazda Foundation will be used to purchase a new dryer to enable bedding to be cleaned and dried more efficiently.
