GIVE a dog a name and you could win him - or her - and help youngsters with cancer enjoy a respite break in Bournemouth.

The Oak Inn village pub at Burton, near Christchurch, is challenging regulars and visitors to guess the name of a cuddly toy dog in a competition to raise much-needed funds for the Daily Echo-backed Youth Cancer Trust charity.

Punters are invited to pay £1 to choose from a list of names before the answer is revealed at the end of May.

Proceeds will go to the trust which operates the Tracy Ann House holiday home for young cancer patients at Alum Chine.

Landlord Ian Brown, who took over the Oak Inn at the end of last year, plans to make the trust the pub's pet charity for the year.

He said: "We are more than willing to raise money for any good causes, particularly local ones.

"We have only been here a few months and the locals have been very generous raising money for the air ambulance, the deaf and the blind."

The Oak is Ian's first venture in the licensed trade after spending 25 years in the retail business with the Co-Op in Surrey.

He is joined in the venture by his wife Jenny and their children Stuart and Claire.

The aim is to make the Oak a family pub and centre of village life, complete with a notice board for local news.