The owner of seven Shiba Inu dogs who help out Merseyside Police officers hopes her pets can steal the show at Crufts 2023
Karen Jones, from Ashton-in-Makerfield, owns the animals, who all work as well-being dogs and assist officers in the region with their work. The 57-year-old is hoping her pets can help continue her decorated record at the event.
Karen has twice trained her dogs to be UK champions in their class, while all seven have previously won lifetime entries to Crufts. But when the Manchester Arena bombing took place in 2017, Karen – who works as a rental development coordinator – began taking her dogs to Manchester Children’s Hospital to support victims, as well as helping Merseyside Police.
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She said: “We used to go into the Children's Hospital and then Covid hit. So, then I started working with the police and I go into all the different police stations all over Merseyside.
“They just relax people, you can see the police officers straight away, they relax. And it's a team building thing as well, you’ll get other officers interacting with each other and different departments.
“Obviously everybody comes away from the desk to see the dogs, so you've got everybody interacting. I also go to wellbeing days where we have an occupational health team with us, and they'll do blood tests and cholesterol tests.
“There's a therapist there in case anybody wants to speak to a therapist if they are feeling a bit down or need to speak to somebody about something, we do that about once or twice a month."
Two of Karen's dogs will be appearing at Crufts next month, with her newest dog Rosie, and Rosie's mum Riot both making the trip to Birmingham. Karen takes her dogs to several public events with the police in addition to visiting special needs school around the Merseyside region.
And while the dogs are there to help the officers, Karen said they get just as much out of it themselves. She added: “You can see all the videos of them interacting with people.
“And they're just being cuddled and they are kissing everybody. They're on the floor with their bellies being rubbed and they absolutely love it. They love it as much as the officers do."
Crufts, run by The Kennel Club, is held from March 9-12 2023 at the NEC in Birmingham. Viewers can follow all the action and highlights on Channel 4 and More4.
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