Onsite Canine Care Assistant - The Grange in High Wycombe

A national charity, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, trains dogs to transform the lives of deaf people and provides hearing loss services – because nobody with hearing loss should feel alone.

About The Role

Location: The Grange, High Wycombe HP279NS
Contract Length: 1-3 months
Hours: 9 hour day shifts, 17 hour overnight shift with accommodation provided. Shifts available across weekdays and weekends.
Responsible To: Regional Training Manager
Salary: £13.45 per hour

The Canine Care Assistant role contains aspects of the early dog training framework from eight weeks whilst the puppy is based at the centre, until placed with a next stage volunteer and Dog Training Instructor.

Key Objectives:

• Responsibility for the day-to-day running of centre-based daycare activities, ensuring high-quality routines, care, and appropriate early learning and dog behaviour development.
• Ensure the dog's social, emotional, and environmental development is optimised for the puppy's age.
• Where an allocated puppy/young dog has a support volunteer, ensure they receive the right level of support and advice for their personal situation.

Main Responsibilities:

• Care for the health and development of a group of puppies, following feeding, sleeping, and early training plans.
• Maintain records of the pups in your care, including sleeping patterns, feeding routines, toileting routines, and training exercises.
• Deliver basic hands-on puppy training with specific dogs developing their social behaviour and handling.
• Provide support to volunteers on a one-to-one basis for all aspects of physical & social puppy development.
• Ensure cleanliness and tidiness of puppy areas, toys, equipment, and the wider working environment.
• Ensure appropriate health and safety and infection control to meet the needs of young puppies.
• Communicate any urgent requirements to the Hearing Dogs Staff team and ensure thorough handovers at the end and beginning of shifts.
• Carry out any other reasonable duties associated with the welfare and wellbeing of the puppies in your care.

About You

Person Specification:

• Communication skills (spoken and written).
• An ability to report information on puppy development both verbally and in writing.
• Organisational skills to manage, prioritise, and calmly deliver a range of demands on a day-to-day basis.
• Good appreciation of record keeping, forward planning, and time management.
• Ability to work with minimum supervision, problem solve, and handle people and situations with tact and diplomacy.
• Interpersonal skills to work successfully and collaboratively with team colleagues.
• IT competency is essential; a good level of literacy is required.

Experience:

• Experience of puppy husbandry and preventive healthcare routines.
• Knowledge of canine behaviour and training techniques.
• Animal Care/Management Qualifications.
• Experience of puppy training.

Please note: This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 due to its duties involving the protection of children and/or adults at risk. Applicants are therefore required to disclose all spent and unspent convictions, cautions, warnings, and reprimands, as well as any relevant non-conviction information. The successful candidate will be required to undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check in accordance with the Police Act 1997 (Part V).