Hounds for Heroes

Posted on Wednesday 12th September 2012


Mission statement

The purpose of Hounds for Heroes is to provide specially trained assistance dogs to injured and disabled men and women of both the UK armed forces and civilian emergency services. Through this provision our aims are to provide help and practical support leading to an enhanced quality of life for our clients.

Initially Hounds for Heroes intends to raise £100,000 for the Puppies on Parade Appeal, which intends to buy 5 Labradors and look after them for 5 years. These dogs will be carefully selected for all the qualities needed to produce excellent assistance dogs. The charity will carefully select puppy parents to start the essential part of their training. After around 15 months the specialist training will start, with a combination of puppy parents and the new owner. All the time the puppies will be meeting on a weekly basis to carry out socialisation and specialist training. When the dogs are fully trained the ownership will be fully transferred to the new owner.

The Puppies on Parade appeal updates everytime we make £100,000 to pay for a squadron of puppies. There are currently 2 squadrons of puppies in training and we are now on the Puppies on Parade Appeal 3, which looks to raise £100,000 for our third squadron due in Autumn 2012. We have grown very quickly and since we were established in early 2010 and have raised the money to pay for the first 2 squadrons of dogs and the training base in Petersfield, Hampshire. If everything goes well the first fully trained dogs should be matched with their disabled owners by Christmas 2012. If you wish to help then may be you could do a fund raising event or get your company to adopt Hounds for Heroes as their chosen charity.

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71 (city of london) signal regiment pledge their support
Helping to put something back into the Community and support injured Servicemen and Women and members of civilian emergency services, 71 (City of London) Yeomanry Signal Regiment have pledged to support the Hounds for Heroes charity and has nominated it as their chosen charity for the year.
Members of the Regiment, based in Bexleyheath, Kent, joined their Commanding Officer and colleagues from the Regiment last month at the charity’s Headquarters in Petersfield to pledge their support to founder Allen Parton.
Squadron Sergeant Major Adrian Keeble (42) who has been with the Regiment for 16 years said, 'What an amazing charity to support, we listened to Mr Parton explain about the charity and were speechless to hear how the dogs are trained and what they can achieve.'
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Pic 005 Members of 71 (City of London) Yeomanry Signal Regiment show the picture of Uniformed Services that the Charity want to help. (L-R) Craftsman Adam Johnson, Major David Cornick (PC in the Met Police in his full time job) Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Craig Sutherland, Signaller David Alston and Squadron Sergeant Major Adrian Keeble. Mr Allen Parton with his Dog EJ on his lap, with Cloonie (the black Lab) and Golden retriever Rookie.
Hounds for Heroes provides specially trained assistance dogs to both injured and disabled men and women from both the UK Armed Forces and civilian emergency services and to provide help and practical support to enhance quality of life.
During the weekend of 21 July, the Regiment raised over £5,000 for the Hounds for Heroes when a team, made up from all of the Regiment’s Squadron’s, demonstrated their fitness and resilience using cross trainers, rowing machines, bikes, and treadmills, to customers at Sainsbury’s in Crayford South London.
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71 Signal Regiment’s Adjutant, Capt Mathew Mallett helping to raise £5000 at Sainsbury’s in Crayford.
Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Craig Sutherland said. 'I met Allen two years ago, and promised that when I took over my own Regiment , I would help, it is a wonderful story and a wonderful thing to be able to do.' He added, 'As the Regiment’s chosen charity our aim is to raise as much money as possible to assist them in achieving their mission.'
71st (City of London) Yeomanry Signal Regiment are not stopping there! Colonel Sutherland said, 'We are now organising a Hounds for Heroes charity Boxing Dinner – appropriately named The Dogfight, the event is on the 29 November 2012 at Wellington Barracks in London, and we are looking to raise a considerable amount of money'.
There are currently over 900,000 men and women from both the armed forces and emergency services who are injured, disabled and traumatised and need support.
Founder and Vice-Chairman Allen Parton said, 'What has been absolutely amazing and truly humbling is the unprecedented level of support the charity now receives from front line troops both at home and overseas.
Allen added, 'We first met Colonel Sutherland over two year ago at Crufts, and it was then he pledged his support.'
The charity is very much in its infancy, and now has 12 ‘cadet puppies’
Allen continued, “The support given to Hounds for Heroes by Colonel Sutherland, his Regiment and the local community, sends out a very clear message to those injured and those members of the forces currently serving on the front line that folk do care. That is a priceless message to be sending out. To the Colonel and his team... It is a job well done!'
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Hounds for Heroes' youngest recruit Vanguard on his absolutely best behaviour under the very watchful eye of the charity founder Allen Parton. The Hounds for Heroes crew presented young Vanguard, whose full life time funding of £20,000 has been met by Pfizer Animal Health, to the Pfizer staff at their families fun day held at their head office at Tadworth Surrey.
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Round the island cadet relay 2012
It is quite unusual for all the different Cadet Forces to work together - but this is exactly what happened in a unique event on the Isle of Wight earlier this year. They were fortunate that The Connaught Drill Halls Trust, based in Portsmouth, sponsored the Round the Island Cadet Relay, 2012.
Despite the horrendous weather conditions of wind, rain, floods and mud over the weekend of April 28th/29th 2012, Sea and Marine cadets from TS Osborne and TS Royal George, Army cadets from 'C' Coy Army Cadet Force, Air cadets from 1024 Sqn ATC and cadets from the two Combined Cadet Forces of Cowes College and Ryde School on the Island walked 90k of the I.O.W. Coastal Path and as well as competing against each other, they raised funds for Hounds for Heroes and the Royal British Legion on their way round. Six of the eight 'Legs' were contested, so as well as having to carry certain items of equipment and having to walk the 'Leg' within a given time limit, each team of 8 cadets had to find 3 'geo-cache' boxes containing 'dingbats' - which they had to solve at the end of each 'Leg', as well as answering a question.
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On the weekend of 28-29 April, the Army, Sea and Marine and Air Cadets joined forces to take part in the Round the Island Cadet Relay.

The Relay began in East Cowes and finished in West Cowes, taking in Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor, Brook, Freshwater,Yarmouth and Newtown.
The highlight of the event was when Allen Parton, founder of Hounds for Heroes and his Assistance dog 'EJ' and another Assistance dog named ‘Rookie’ met the cadets at Gurnard to lead them along the sea front for the final part of Relay to West Cowes. A £5,000 cheque was presented to Allen, which entitled the cadets to choose a name for their ‘puppy cadet’. They have chosen the name ‘Warrior’, after General Jack Seely’s incredible war horse of the first world war, who lived at Mottistone on the Island. As the name had to have a military connection, it was appropriate that the name ‘Warrior’ also represented the name of a ship, a tank and a soldier.
The weekend weather conditions would not have been unfamiliar to ‘Warrior’ who survived the horrors of the battlefields of the Somme and Ypres, to end his days peacefully on the Isle of Wight.
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The Cadets present a cheque for £5,000 to Allen Parton, entitling them to choose a name for their 'puppy cadet'.

Further information
Hounds for Heroes need to raise £20,000 per dog which covers all costs from the dog’s training to being with its owner for 8 years so that any family or owner does not have to worry about training, dog food or vets bills. Each Dog has a Military name and currently the charity have 2 Squadron’s of 6 puppies undergoing training, and their very first trained dog will be allocated to its owner in October. For further information on the charity visit www.houndsforheroes.com.
71 Signal Regiment has its’ headquarters based at Bexleyheath and has other Squadron locations based in Lincoln’s Inn, Whipps Cross, Chelmsford, Southfields, and Uxbridge.
Call 0800 854266 or your Territorial Centre on [0132 231 5129] or visit www.army.mod.uk for more information.

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A poster advertising details of The Dogs Dinner charity event being held on 14-15 September.

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Hounds for Heroes provides specially-trained assistance dogs

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