This year our group members chose three local charities to vote on and we are delighted to announce Weymouth & Portland Animal Welfare Society P.A.W.S; which is a small independent band of volunteers whose constitution is to prevent pain and suffering in animals wherever possible.

They have helped so many local people over lockdown with advice and support for owners whose situations have changed unexpectedly.

Lockdown saw them making the difficult decision to close their charity shop in St Thomas Street, Weymouth which they relied on for income and was run by a dedicated team of volunteers.

With the growing and continued support of our Weymouth and Portland group members, we will be launching our very first Charity Calendar for 2022, which will include photos of our group members' dogs, kindly taken and supplied by John Fanning Photography.

We had over 120 dog submissions in which 10 were selected at random. Two spaces were kept - one for a young assistant dog who is being trained for a child, and May, who helps her owner litter picking and who has been recognised by former Weymouth Town Council Mayor Graham Winter - which we believe are well deserved.

The calendars will be available to buy later in the year and will be available from a number of outlets that display our stickers.

In 2019 our Dog Friendly Social ‘Weymouth & Portland’ group members held a fun dog show to raise funds for PAWS (Weymouth), raising over £500.

In 2020 we hoped to holds walks and another fun dog show selecting two charities to raise funds for after meeting them at local events in Dorchester and Weymouth. One of them is Pawsome Pension, a charity in the south west that care for retired service dogs, and The Cinnamon Trust which offers support to those owners who may need help during illness or a change in circumstances.

To keep people safe, we decided to make fabric face masks people could buy through our ‘Weymouth and Portland’ group page. Orders quickly came in and in a couple of months a grand total of £300 has been raised and we will split this equally between the two charities.

Finally. we would like to thank all our members for their continued support.

If you are a business and would like one of our “Dogs Welcome” stickers then you can purchase them directly at www.shop.dogfriendly.social

Linda Stevenson

Co-Founder - DogFriendly. Social Weymouth