Puppy Development Advisor - South London, Surrey and North Sussex

Pawsome Careers - Make Every Day Meaningful

Come and join us as a proactive and purpose‑led Puppy Development Advisor and be part of something life‑changing - helping people with sight loss live the life they choose.

As a Puppy Development Advisor at Guide Dogs, you’ll deliver high-quality training and ongoing support to volunteers responsible for the care and development of Guide Dogs puppies, ensuring all activities align with positive reinforcement techniques and the Puppy Raising programme. The Puppy Development Advisor will bring practical, hands-on expertise in canine behaviour modification, positive reinforcement, or dog training, alongside experience of coaching and training individuals and groups in both practical skills and theoretical knowledge. Our Puppy Development Advisors play a huge part in ensuring everything we do enables us to deliver on our purpose and exceed expectations.

This position requires travel throughout South London, Surrey and North Sussex, which will generally take place across four days each week. The remaining day will typically be dedicated to administrative duties and can be worked from home or from a Guide Dogs office. You will work 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm. Some flexibility is required to occasionally work outside of core hours,

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and support volunteers within allocated schemes, supporting recruitment and providing training, coaching, and performance support to ensure high standards of puppy care and development
• Identify and develop lead and key volunteers to strengthen local and regional support networks
• Enable volunteer progression by building knowledge and skills in puppy development and care
• Maintain effective contingency plans by developing and sustaining strong volunteer programmes
• Ensure a consistent supply of well-prepared, healthy puppies for Canine Services
• Deliver engaging and face-to-face and virtual training, including 1-1 visits, classes, and group sessions
• Match puppies to volunteers to achieve the best possible outcomes

You

You’ll have a practical, hands-on and collaborative approach to delivering coaching, training, and supporting puppy development using positive reinforcement techniques. You’ll enjoy working both independently and as part of a team in a varied, field-based environment, with a dedicated focus on developing volunteers and ensuring high standards of puppy care and training, whilst being committed to animal welfare and achieving the best outcomes for future guide dogs. You’ll be able to prioritise a busy and varied workload and act with integrity and honesty in everything you do.

Skills and Competencies

• GCSE’s in Maths and English at grade C or above; or equivalent (QCF level 2 / SQCF level 5).
• Practical, hands-on experience within the field of canine behaviour modification, positive reinforcement or dog training as a practitioner.
• Experience of coaching and training individuals and groups of people in practical skills and theoretical knowledge.
• Experience of effective planning, prioritising and organising workload.
• Able to demonstrate knowledge of the application of animal behaviour and positive reinforcement training.

Benefits

We wouldn’t be able to change the lives of people with sight loss without our people. That’s why it’s important for us to provide a variety of benefits that reward our colleagues in a way that suits them and recognises the hard work and contribution that they make.

• 26 days annual leave. After three years of continuous employment, this increases to 28 days plus bank holidays.
• Real Living Wage Employer
• Flex pot - equal to a proportion of your annual salary to use on our wide variety of flexible benefits
• The option to buy and sell annual leave
• Discounts and cash-back scheme
• Excellent pension scheme (We will match your pension contributions plus 2% up to a maximum of 9% employer contribution)
• And lots more!

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

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Behind Every Guide Dog Is Someone Like You - We’re passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that celebrates and values diversity. Bring your whole self to work regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We don’t want you to ‘fit’ our culture, we want you to enrich it. 

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.  Please note - If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier.  We cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.

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, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.

If you choose to use AI tools to assist in completing your application, please use them appropriately.  We value authenticity. If you want to stand out, using a generic AI-generated response isn’t going to separate you from the crowd. This is your time to shine and showcase your unique skills, personality, and thought processes!  You can find our full statement on the use of AI to complete applications on our careers website.

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].

Safer recruitment

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.

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. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.