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Northants guide dog and robot best friends after date

Ollie Conopo/BBC Labrador with guide dog harness standing next to white and green delivery robotOllie Conopo/BBC
Amelia and Levi did not hit it off straight away but now get on well

A guide dog has conquered her fear of delivery robots after going on a date with one.

Amelia, a Labrador from Raunds in Northamptonshire, reacted badly to Levi the robot when they crossed paths during a walk.

The delivery company that owned Levi invited Amelia to its depot to try to break the ice.

And Amelia's owner said the technophobic dog was now taking electronic couriers in her stride.

Ollie Conopo/BBC David Holmes - man with short white hair and blue shirt sitting in an officeOllie Conopo/BBC
David Holmes, the guide dog's owner, did not know what Amelia had been growling at in the street

White boxes on wheels with aerials sticking out of them have become a common sight in some towns and cities as they trundle down pavements and across roads delivering takeaways and packages.

But David Holmes, Amelia's owner, discovered that, while the robots may be familiar to most people, they were new to Amelia.

He said: "Amelia took me to the kerb, and she started barking, growling and pulling me into the road.

"I heard a little trundling noise behind me. Obviously, I didn't know what it was, and when I got home, my wife said to me 'did you meet the robot?' and then it all clicked."

Mr Holmes posted about his experience on social media and it came to the attention of Gareth Chisholm, general manager at DPD's depot in Milton Keynes.

Ollie Conopo/BBC Gareth Chisholm - man with brown hair and beard sitting in front of a large mapOllie Conopo/BBC
Gareth Chisholm, from DPD, wanted to try to make Amelia and Levi the best of friends

He said; "I wanted to reach out to see if we could do any sort of acclimatisation and make the dog and the robot best friends."

He brought them together at the depot to see what would happen.

He said: "We didn't really have a plan of how we were going to introduce them - we knew we had to do it slowly with treats.

"She started off very apprehensive, but once the treats came through, she got more involved to the point where we were able to walk the robot past Amelia with very little reaction and she got more and more accepting of it being in the area."

The tests were then repeated on a pavement outside the depot, to reflect a real-life environment.

Amelia passed with flying colours. She did not react to Levi's presence.

Soon afterwards, Mr Holmes discovered that the familiarisation session had really worked.

He said: "I went out for lunch and I had my wife with me and she said there was a robot there.

"Because Amelia didn't react, I didn't know."

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