The Breeding Dog Wellbeing Technician helps people with sight loss to live the life they choose by being responsible for ensuring the mental and physical welfare and specialist care of all dogs. This is achieved through carrying out husbandry duties to provide for the wellbeing of breeding stock and puppies whilst accommodated at a Guide Dogs site.

For this role you’ll be working 35 hours per week on a rolling two-week rota, this includes evenings/overnight shifts, bank holidays and alternate weekends.

This role will be based on site at our National Centre in Leamington Spa, working closely with the Breeding Dog team.

We offer a generous pension scheme, annual leave, life assurance and enhanced pay for parenting and sickness leave. In addition, we provide an Employee Assistance Programme, flexible benefits package and discounts and cashback scheme to care for our people.

More details can be found in the attached candidate pack and job description.

We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date.

Diversity

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.

We encourage applications from people with disabilities as they are currently under-represented in the organisation and guarantee an invitation to interview for all applicants with disabilities who demonstrate, within their application form, sufficient evidence to meet the essential criteria for the job.

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.

Candidate requirements

To be able to fulfil this role, the skills and experience we are looking for in a potential candidate include:

Essential
• A qualification in animal care, training/behaviour, or equivalent relevant work-based experience.
• Able to undertake physical demands of the role, including handling puppies in the nest and placing puppies in and out of vehicles and large dogs over 24kgs. Be able to handle equipment and specialist resource required for the role.
• Able to meet the travel requirements of the role. In the absence of a full valid UK Driving License, you will be expected to demonstrate how you will fulfil this aspect of the role via alternative means.
• Experience of working in a kennel environment, paid employment or voluntary.
• Independent and able to make decisions/direct others based on own knowledge and experience.
• Ability to problem solve and be resourceful, in non-routine situations.
• Able to work unsocial hours including early mornings, evenings, overnight duties weekends and bank holidays.

Desirable
• Experience of coaching and mentoring.
• Working with volunteers.
• Ability to demonstrate the principles of canine reproduction and early stages of puppy development.
• Demonstrable understanding of behavioural and physical changes associated with breeding dogs.

For the complete list of essential and desirable criteria necessary to be successful in this role please see the Person Specification within the Job Description below. The candidate pack contains information about this role & the recruitment process.

If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK.

How to apply
If you have any accessibility issues, please contact our Recruitment Team on 0118 3540345 or peopleservicecentre@guidedogs.org.uk.

Applications need to be made using the online application form, accessed using the ‘apply’ button above.

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.

The system has a one-hour time limit. We advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised. If any mandatory fields are missed, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion.

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 there is not enough space in your application form to provide this information, please ensure you upload additional documentation.

Please contact our Recruitment Team on 0118 3540345 or peopleservicecentre@guidedogs.org.uk if you require any support with your application.