Trainee guide dogs visit castle for 'fun' training

Training guide dogs at a Kent visitor attraction is "fun" for the puppies as well as a teaching opportunity, a puppy raiser says.

Guide Dogs volunteers and their puppies met up at Leeds Castle near Maidstone on Tuesday for an annual training event.

Sam Doe, a puppy development adviser for the charity, told BBC Radio Kent the castle offered "a different environment with different surfaces and lots of distractions".

Puppy raiser Kathryn Newby, currently training her 13th dog, said visiting the castle was fun for the dogs "because they're going to see lots of things that they're not going to see" otherwise.

Ms Newby, from West Malling in Kent, will raise her six-month-old puppy Reo until he is at least two years old.

Guide dogs need to be "calm at the right time" and "willing to work", she said.

Ms Doe said the presence of lots of children at the castle "actually is great training for our pups".

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