Guide Dog Breeding Centre & Royal Pump Rooms

About this excursion

£69 per person

The National Breeding Centre (NBC) opened in May 2011 near Leamington Spa making it possible to increase the capacity to breed puppies from 1,100 to 1,500 a year. In addition it provides modern facilities that will enhance dog and staff welfare and provide much better facilities for their volunteers. The new Centre caters for large groups of visitors and shows where life begins for a guide dog and how these life changing animals are bred.

During our two-hour tour, there will be a talk, we will be shown a film and then taken by volunteer tour guides to see the puppy block, whelping areas and, of course, the puppies, as well as learning more about their work. You will also have a chance to experience their new Sensory Tunnel, which gives a brief experience of life with sight loss.

Before our visit to the NBC we shall be calling at the Royal Pump Rooms and Baths. This is a Grade II listed building in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. It was the most famous of several spa baths opened in Leamington between the late-18th and mid-19th centuries. People would travel from throughout the country, and indeed Europe, to benefit from treatments using the town’s healing waters. When ‘taking the waters’ became less fashionable after the mid-19th century the Pump Rooms became Leamington’s only surviving spa facility, later also being extended to include the town’s public swimming pool. After a major redevelopment in 1997 – 99 the building now houses Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.

The café in the Royal Pump Rooms will be providing a welcoming cup of coffee or tea on our arrival and lunch after our visit.

The cost of this day will include luxury coach transport, entrance to the Pump Rooms and Guide Dog Breeding Centre, morning coffee and lunch + a donation of £10 to the Guide Dog Breeding Centre and, of course, some treats.

 

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