The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
Dog Welfare Specialist
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Pawsome Careers - Make Every Day Meaningful
Come and join us as a proactive and purpose-led Dog Welfare Specialist and be part of something life-changing - helping people with sight loss live the life they choose.
This is a highly visible and collaborative role requiring regular travel across Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, North Stafford, Cumbria and surrounding areas. You'll work closely with colleagues and stakeholders across a diverse geographical area, so flexibility and a willingness to undertake frequent, and occasionally daily, travel is essential. A regular weekly or twice-weekly presence at our Atherton site will also form an important part of the role, enabling effective teamwork, relationship building, and service delivery. Regular hands-on involvement with our dogs is a key aspect of the role, including organising on-site clinics, monitoring health and welfare, and supporting evidence-based welfare decision making. For this 12-month FTC role you’ll be working 21 hours per week, worked 9am to 5pm, Monday, Tuesday and Friday.
As a Dog Welfare Specialist at Guide Dogs, you'll play a key role in ensuring our dogs receive the highest standards of care and welfare. Working closely with guide dog owners, volunteers, veterinary professionals and colleagues, you'll provide expert advice, assess welfare needs, interpret complex health information and support informed decisions that maximise canine health, wellbeing and quality of life. The Dog Welfare Specialist will be an expert in canine health and welfare, welfare assessment, veterinary case management and translating complex technical information into practical guidance for a wide range of stakeholders. Our Dog Welfare Specialists play a huge part in ensuring everything we do enables us to deliver on our purpose and exceed expectations.
Key Responsibilities
- As part of a regional team, assist in the operational delivery of all dog welfare services ensuring best practice.
- Collaborate with the Dog Triage and veterinary services teams to provide in-person advice and practical support as appropriate to volunteers and clients within the designated geographical area.
- Adhering to prioritisation criteria carry out in-person welfare assessments, as directed by the Dog Welfare Operations Manager.
- Responsible for gaining all relevant veterinary information to support decisions on treatment plans. Consult with internal and external veterinary professionals and/or clients to identify the most appropriate course of action, maximise the dog's veterinary care and welfare.
- Interpret or clarify technical information to aid understanding for internal and external stakeholders.
- In collaboration with Guide Dog Service (GDS) colleagues, ensure all dogs allocated to the Dog Welfare Specialist, receive required health screens and investigations.
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You
- You'll have a proactive and solutions-focused approach to canine health and wellbeing, using your expertise to make informed decisions and support positive outcomes.
- You'll enjoy working in a collaborative and relationship-driven environment, partnering with colleagues, veterinary professionals, guide dog owners and volunteers, with a dedicated focus on delivering high standards of care and evidence-based decision making.
- You'll act with integrity and honesty in everything you do.
Skills and Competencies
- Vocational qualification specific to canine health and welfare to NVQ level 3 or equivalent.
- One of the following; 2 ‘A’ levels (one of which must be a biological or social science subject) (QCF level 3 / SQCF levels 6-7) OR equivalent qualifications, or experience.
- Able to meet the travel requirements of the role which involves transporting dogs. 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 working with dogs within a professional environment, applying welfare-based decision making to support positive outcomes.
- Experience coaching, teaching, mentoring or supporting others to develop knowledge, skills or competence.
- Experience of dealing with complex canine health cases in a veterinary, rescue or welfare environment.
- Sound understanding of canine welfare principles and their practical application.
- Good knowledge of common canine health conditions, treatment options and ongoing management requirements.
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.
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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
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 recruitment@guidedogs.org.uk.
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.
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