Name: Caroline House
Area: Thurrock Essex
Carolyne House is a homely residential care, nursing care and dementia care home in Thurrock, Essex. The spacious care home presents beautifully furnished facilities and features, including 52 bedrooms with ensuite bathroom facilities, a dedicated area for dementia care and a themed tearoom. The amenities at Carolyne House care home provide residents with a comfortable and welcoming home environment in which to live. Cath Lumley visits regularly with her amazing dogs, initially starting with Gus, a lovely Boston terrier, then with Lenny, a giant schnauzer, and eventually Link (another Boston terrier), joined him too. Kiva, a lovely great Dane, also joined them for a few months at the end of 2021, before sadly passing away.
The home welcome many outside entertainments and often hold events such as fetes and, just last month, a canine entertainment afternoon.
On Sunday 2nd September they very kindly opened their garden for a very different dog show. It wasn’t the usual type of dog show event, where you might have several classes and dogs (and owners) competing to be the best, but instead it was an entertaining two hours, with three great displays; Alicia’s Obedience Dog Training, K9 Scent & Search UK & K9 Solutions’ Trickstars.
K9 Scent & Search UK and K9 Solutions’ Trickstars went along to give a little demo of their services. Our trickstars and searchers had great fun, and the residents and their families loved watching the dogs do their thing. Nosework is great fun for both dog and handler, utilising the dog’s most natural abilities, enhancing teamwork and building strong bonds. It is, for the most part, an individual sport so suitable for all dogs. The founder of K9 Scent & Search, Jo Crosby Deakin, began her nosework back in 2012 and she was totally hooked and couldn’t learn enough about it. It was such a different sport to what she had been used to and she wanted to bring it to pet dog owners so they could enjoy it as much as she did. Dogs have very sensitive noses and love to use them often for very important work, but always for fun.
Alicia’s Obedience Dog Training also demonstrated how obedient yet fun loving dogs are who have been to her classes. Her team showed some good behaviour whilst having fun. Obedience isn’t all about a dog being perfect because they are scared of their owner, but that they want to do it to please their owner with dog and owner having a strong bond. Alicia’s team of trainers love what they do, and could not be more driven about producing well trained, happy dogs, fabulous bonds and understanding. When you entrust AODT with training you and your dog, you benefit from years of experience, backed up by the latest available information & studies, combined with a super supportive structure to help you both succeed.
We were also lucky to have the support of several Canine Concern members including Julie Negus, Jules Hawkey and Hazel Davison as well as Val Fillery, the CEO. Carolyne House also organised a lovely barbecue and refreshments as well as a raffle. Their staff volunteered their time as well to help at this event.
This event not only gave the residents and their family and friends an enjoyable afternoon of entertainment, and the dogs and owners great satisfaction in showing what they can do, but also raised £548 for Canine Concern.
Carolyne House with Cath Lumley and her great team of Gus, Link, Lenny and Kiva have had fun raising funds for Canine Concern on many occasions.
In July 2021 Gusdog also did a sponsored walk and swim and raised another £420 for us.
In September 2021 the staff and residents organised a sponsored walk/wheelchair push and raised £150 for us.
In June 2022 they also organised an event for the Queen’s Jubilee and raised £36 for Canine Concern.
Canine Concern Comments
Thank you to Carolyne House staff and Cath Lumley for partaking in so many fun activities with the dogs, helping so many residents and staff on a regular basis. The addition of the fundraising also helps the charity continue to do this fantastic work for years to come. It is lovely hearing the stories from these visits and seeing so many happy faces. This is what volunteering for Canine Concern is all about.
