If you have a bit of time to spare, the Cinnamon Trust are looking for volunteer dog walkers in the West Wales area.
The charity are a specialist organisation, who help elderly and terminally ill people to look after their pets. Animal companions bring huge comfort under ordinary circumstances, but they play a particularly important support role in testing times. With the Cinnamon Trust’s help, people don’t have to worry about being separated from their beloved pets when health or mobility issues make it too challenging to cope with by themselves.
Cinnamon Trust volunteers help with everything from the day-to-day pet care tasks to pet foster care. Naturally, in a nation of dog lovers, dog walking is one of the main services that their service users require. There’s a particular need in the West Wales area, why is why they are reaching out to locals who may be able to help.
It doesn’t have to be a daily commitment (unless you’re one of the few who has that much time to spare). Volunteers help out on a schedule that fits into their lifestyle, whether that’s a few times a week, once a week or on a fortnightly basis. Every walk you’re able to offer makes a difference – not just to the person and their dog, but to your wellbeing too.
Local Cinnamon Trust volunteer Jackie Biggs has first-hand experience of the benefits of getting involved.
“Taking a dog for a walk for someone on a regular basis must be one of the easiest volunteering roles there is, and it is probably the most pleasurable, and certainly a really valuable help for that dog’s owner. I’ve been a volunteer for Cinnamon Trust for a couple of years now.
I walked a dog, a 10-year-old Jack Russell called Patch, once a week for a long time for an elderly woman with sight loss. I now walk two dogs twice a week for a woman who has serious mobility problems. Her little dogs don’t need much walking, but they do love to go out and sniff around for half an hour. I always get a big welcome when I go to collect them. I also walk a Pomeranian once a week for an elderly woman who has mobility problems and is struggling to recover from Covid19. All the owners I walk for currently live alone and the fact that they have regular walkers for their dogs means they can keep their much-loved companion animals at home with them.
Cinnamon Trust also offers short and long-term fostering for animals if owners have to go into hospital or long-term care, or if they have to make the difficult decision that they can no longer look after them for any reason. I don’t have pets of my own at the moment, so this is a good way for me to maintain some animal company in my own life too. So it’s a win for me, for the dogs and for their owners.”
If you’d like to volunteer for the Cinnamon Trust, you can find out more here. Or if you know someone who may benefit from their services, they can contact the Cinnamon Trust online or call 01736 757 900.
