WOOFABILITY is this year’s chosen charity for the Ringwood Furlong Centre.

The charity is dedicated to buying and training dogs for the disabled.

Jenny Clarke from Ferndown, who uses a wheelchair, trained her first dog 25 years ago.

Since April she has been energetically setting up and running the charity from home and hopes to raise £45,000 in one year.

Several dogs have been sponsored already.

The Ringwood Brownies have raised £800 to buy and train a puppy called Bracken and Parkstone Grammar School pupils are sponsoring a puppy, Casper, for five years.

Ringwood Town Council has made a donation, and East Dorset District Council is sponsoring another dog, Furzil, throughout the year with a series of fundraising events.

Jenny said: "Next year we will have 10 dogs in training. It takes two years and costs about £5,000 to train each dog.

“The response has been fantastic, we have already raised about £20,000, so we should be on target for that £45,000. Next year we want to make it £100,000.”

Jenny and her team of helpers and puppies will be in the Furlong on November 14 to explain what she is doing and to invite sponsorship and donations.

She and the dogs will also be in the Furlong to help Santa in his gingerbread house.

Santa will be seeing the children on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the three weekends in December.

A visit to Santa will be free but Santa and the Furlong shopkeepers hope that visitors will donate to Woofability and help train a dog to bring vital assistance and companionship to people with disabilities