Three puppies, all just over a year old, have started their transformation into guide dogs and left Malta to spend the rest of the year being trained in Sicily.

Chucky, Comma and Candy were accompanied by three families who had looked after them for the past year, said Rita Criminale, from the Malta Guide Dog Foundation.

The families, known as puppy walkers, “fostered” the puppies until they were old enough to go to Messina to start their training. In Malta, they were trained by Robert Spiteri.

In Sicily, the dogs will be matched to a future Maltese owner who would travel to Sicily for training on how to handle the animal.

Follow-up training then continues in Malta. Although there were no Maltese guide dog trainers, there were a few people able to handle the follow-up training, foundation chairman Joseph Stafrace explained.

The Malta Guide Dogs Foundation has been calling on the government for financial support to fund the training of animals that help blind people gain independence. The foundation would like the authorities to help them set up a guide dog school in Malta by paying for the training of at least two guide dog instructors and assisting in the acquisition of land.

As  things stand today, the foundation sends dogs to Messina for training, which costs about €14,000 per animal. The foundation pays for the expenses through fundraising and sponsors.

Since the foundation was set up in 2006, seven guide dogs have been trained but there are about 1,800 visually impaired people in Malta.

A group of 12 blind and visually impaired people, who are on the waiting list for a guide dog, recently attended a course in orientation and mobility. The course, conducted by UK professionals, was necessary to be eligible to use a guide dog.