{"id":941777,"date":"2026-05-06T15:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941777\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:14:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:14:21","slug":"support-dog-rodney-behind-mums-london-marathon-bid-nottingham-local-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941777\/","title":{"rendered":"Support dog Rodney behind mum\u2019s London Marathon bid \u2013 Nottingham Local News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The life-changing impact of a support dog on her autistic daughter inspired a Rushcliffe mum to run the London Marathon and raise more than \u00a33,000 as a thank you to his provider.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Laura Charlton\u2019s 13-year-old daughter Betsy was diagnosed with autism, along with global development delay, at a very young age.<\/p>\n

With limited communication skills and complex sensory needs for Betsy, simple everyday tasks and outings can result in major challenges for the Charltons.<\/p>\n

Like many autistic children, Betsy has no sense of danger and often bolts without warning, potentially putting herself at risk.<\/p>\n

She is classed as non-verbal and has difficulty communicating her needs or expressing her feelings.<\/p>\n

But since being matched with autism assistance dog Rodney by national charity Support Dogs three years ago, Betsy has been able to live a much more inclusive life.<\/p>\n

Rodney\u2019s extra-ordinary effect was the reason Laura chose to tackle the London Marathon in aid of Support Dogs, which trains and provides specialist assistance dogs to help children and adults with a range of challenging medical conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cRodney has just changed our lives,\u201d said Laura, a 45-year-old national sales manager for Skechers footwear who lives in Radcliffe-on-Trent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still this unspoken respect between Rodney and Betsy. He\u2019s just phenomenal with her. Nothing fazes him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura, who is married to Miles, a 49-year-old finance manager, added: \u201cWhen the opportunity for a place in the Marathon came up, via Support Dogs, I said \u2018absolutely\u2019 and it\u2019s great to raise awareness of this fantastic charity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t appreciate how life-changing he would be! Rodney has opened doors for Betsy to allow her to integrate and experience things and feel comfortable in environments she generally wouldn\u2019t have felt comfortable in. I wouldn\u2019t want to think of life without Rodney, especially now Betsy is a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Laura\u2019s first London Marathon and she completed it in five hours, 47 minutes.<\/p>\n

She described the day as \u201cphenomenal\u201d, adding: \u201cOnce us runners got into the pen area, everyone was giving encouragement and making friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that kept people going was the crowd, with everyone shouting your name \u2013 it was like a street party in some residential areas, with people, drums, music and food.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were signs saying \u2018remember your \u201cwhy\u201d\u2019 and why you\u2019re doing it absolutely drives everybody on when you get to your low point, which will\u00a0 happen. But Support Dogs has supported our family immensely and that thought convinced me to carry on.\u201d Laura said she \u201cwould absolutely\u201d do it all again.<\/p>\n

There is still time to sponsor her, at https:\/\/2026tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com\/pf\/laura-charlton<\/p>\n

To find out more about the work of Support Dogs, please visit www.supportdogs.org.uk or call 0114 2617800.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The life-changing impact of a support dog on her autistic daughter inspired a Rushcliffe mum to run the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[263029,748,12450,393,4884,263030,17450,226255,263031,1620,263032,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-941777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-betsy","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-charity","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-laura-charlton","14":"tag-london-marathon","15":"tag-radcliffe-on-trent","16":"tag-rodney","17":"tag-sheffield","18":"tag-support-dogs","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116528288619088230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}