{"id":20715,"date":"2023-11-29T11:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/?p=20715"},"modified":"2023-11-29T09:06:13","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T09:06:13","slug":"ovenu-franchisees-adopt-guide-dogs-trainee-pup-ralph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/ovenu-franchisees-adopt-guide-dogs-trainee-pup-ralph\/","title":{"rendered":"Ovenu franchisees adopt Guide Dogs trainee pup, Ralph"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

More than 100 Ovenu franchisees have welcomed guide dog puppy Ralph as an honorary member of the UK\u2019s largest independent oven cleaning business.<\/p>\n

The seven-month-old pup replaces black Labrador Selsey, which the franchisees first started sponsoring in 2021.<\/p>\n

Despite excelling in training, Selsey developed a slight weakness in one hip, which meant she was unable to progress as a working guide dog.<\/p>\n

However, the franchisees wanted to continue their support for the charity by sponsoring yellow Golden Retriever-Labrador cross Ralph.<\/p>\n

Aged seven months, he is currently spending time with Puppy Raisers Adrian and Toni in their home. So far, he is settling in well.<\/p>\n

His first \u2018report card\u2019 states Ralph is brilliant at sleeping through the night, is learning to be around people and travels well in the car. His food manners meanwhile are said to be \u2018almost there\u2019!<\/p>\n

The pup will remain with Toni and Adrian until he\u2019s 12 to 14-months old before going into training at a Guide Dogs centre with the long term ambition of being matched to someone with sight loss.<\/p>\n

Toni and Adrian, together with Guide Dogs\u2019 CEO Andrew Lennox, recently met Ovenu\u2019s managing director Rik Hellewell and members of his head office team at one of the charity\u2019s community facilities \u2013 where they were introduced to Ralph.<\/p>\n

Rik said that the pup was named Ralph in honour of his maternal grandfather, who along with his grandmother, both lost their sight.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIt was fantastic to meet Ralph and to learn more about his training and that he is picking up all the early skills he needs to progress to become a fully-fledged Guide Dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur franchisees were proud to sponsor Selsey and wanted to continue the relationship with this fantastic charity and are already looking forward to receiving regular \u2018pup-dates\u2019 on Ralph\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuide Dogs literally transform the lives of those affected by sight loss, and our Ovenu franchisees are pleased to play a small part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Lennox said: \u201cIt was wonderful to meet Rik and the team at Ovenu at our Reading Hub and to thank them for their generosity. It costs approximately \u00a356,000 to support each guide dog through from birth to retirement, and without all the contributions of our donors and the efforts of our fundraisers we would not be able to do what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jo Berry, Community Fundraising Manager from Guide Dogs, said: \u201cOvenu\u2019s generous support will allow us to make a life-changing difference to someone living with sight loss. We\u2019re really grateful that the team at Ovenu have continued their kind support by sponsoring a second puppy. By fundraising for our \u2018Name a Puppy\u2019 scheme, they are playing such an important part of a puppy\u2019s life-changing journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

For further information or to donate to Guide Dogs please visit their website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 100 Ovenu franchisees have welcomed guide dog puppy Ralph as an honorary member of the UK\u2019s largest independent oven cleaning business. The seven-month-old pup replaces black Labrador Selsey, which the franchisees first started sponsoring in 2021. Despite excelling in training, Selsey developed a slight weakness in one hip, which meant she was unable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ovenu","category-cleaning-franchises"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}