Puppy Development Advisor

This is a 12-month fixed-term role requiring daily travel across the Kent area. Standard working hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. During the initial training period, travel will also include Sussex and Hertfordshire.

You’re passionate about puppy development and positive training techniques, with a solid understanding of canine learning and behaviour modification. You love helping others grow their confidence and skills while making a meaningful impact on the future of life-changing partnerships.

We’re looking for someone with hands-on experience in puppy development and volunteer management. You’ll have a background in running puppy classes, implementing behaviour modification plans for young dogs, and guiding volunteers to raise puppies for a future career as a Guide Dog.

As a Puppy Development Advisor, you’ll support volunteers across your area to raise well-rounded, confident puppies through the Guide Dogs Puppy Raising Programme. From initial placement to preparing puppies for their next steps, you’ll provide practical guidance, coaching, and training to ensure every pup gets the best start possible.

You’ll build strong relationships with volunteers, offering regular one-to-one support, delivering puppy classes, and hosting group sessions, both virtually and in person. Your role will involve assessing puppy development, addressing behavioural challenges, and collaborating with colleagues to create tailored training and care plans.

To thrive in this role, you’ll need:

• Proven experience in positive reinforcement dog training or canine behaviour modification
• A strong understanding of puppy development
• Ideally, a degree in an animal-related subject such as behaviour, training, or welfare
• Confidence delivering training in various formats and building rapport with people as well as dogs
• Organisational skills and adaptability to respond to different situations

Experience in volunteer management or animal welfare is highly desirable, and confidence using Microsoft Office and databases is important for maintaining accurate records and planning your workload. This is a varied and rewarding role where you’ll make a difference every day, supporting people and puppies.

First stage interview will be held virtually W/C the 1^st of December, in person assessments will be at our Redbridge site on the 16^th of December.

How to apply 

Further details on the full role are attached below. When you are ready to apply, submit an online application form via this page.

If you would like to have an informal conversation about the role before applying, or require any accessibility support to apply, our friendly recruitment team is ready and waiting to help. Call them on 0118 3540345 or drop an email to [email protected].

As part of your application ensure you provide evidence and examples of how your skills & experience meet the criteria as set out in the attached job description. You will also be asked to complete a few job-specific questions as part of this application process, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.

If you want to know more about the teams who work at Guide Dogs, you can find it on our Careers Page

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Guide Dogs welcomes applications from all sections of the community and actively encourages diversity to maximise achievements, creativity and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. 

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are proud, whenever possible, to offer an interview to all candidates that meet our selection criteria, and who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident interview commitment. For more details, visit our careers site.

If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier; in addition, we cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.

Every day is different at Guide Dogs. And no person with sight loss is the same. We work side by side, on our sites and in the community, in schools and on our streets, supporting people to live the life they choose. Our staff therefore also work in different ways to support the delivery of our life changing work.

Safeguarding

Guide Dogs is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children, young people and adults at risk of harm with whom we work. We expect all our employees and volunteers to fully share this commitment.

At Guide Dogs, we believe in fair and equitable hiring practices. A criminal record will not automatically disqualify an applicant from consideration for a position. Each case will be evaluated individually, taking into account the nature of the offense, its relevance to the role, and the time that has passed since the incident. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.

Guide Dogs follow Safer Recruitment practices to ensure we are safeguarding the vulnerable people we work with. As part of this, we require a full work history with any gaps accounted for & a minimum of 2 professional referee details fully covering the past 5 years. If you are applying for a disclosure role, please note that you will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and sign up to the DBS update service.

For high volumes of applications, we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than advertised.