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A Leamington café owner has created a Guide Dogs-inspired window mural ahead of running the London Marathon for the charity later this month.

Alice Herring has transformed the window of Rustic Food café in Regent Street with a variety of dog drawings and an outline of the London skyline.

She hopes that the mural will encourage people to sponsor her for the marathon, which she will be running in aid of Guide Dogs on Sunday April 23.

Rustic Food Cafe owner Alice and trainee guide dogs Charlie and Ashleigh with the mural in the background. Picture supplied.

Alice said: “It was really fun working on the window mural and we’ve already had lots of interests from passers-by wanting to find out more about how we’re supporting Guide Dogs.

“The plan is to create competitions involving the local community through my art murals and pet portraits to help raise the target of £4,000 for the charity, ahead of completing the London Marathon for them later this month.

“Guide Dogs has great people, doing even greater things, and I feel very lucky to be working alongside them.”

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Part of the Guide Dogs mural at the Rustic Food cafe in Leamington. Picture supplied.

As well as raising money for Guide Dogs, Rustic Food has also been providing the charity’s staff with free hot drinks.

Guide Dogs’ Midlands Regional Centre is based on Warwick New Rd, where around 90 guide dogs are trained each year.

Graham Kensett, Head of Canine Assisted Services for the Midlands and East region at Guide Dogs, said: “We’re extremely grateful to Alice and everyone at Rustic Food for their support.

“The window mural which Alice has created is a fantastic, fun way to showcase the work we do here at Guide Dogs.

“It costs around £55,000 to support a guide dog from birth to retirement and, as a charity, we rely almost entirely on public donations to keep our life-changing services running.

“Without support from people like Alice, and Rustic Food, we wouldn’t be able to help the people with sight loss we support.

“We wish Alice the best of luck with the final stages of her training and hope the race goes well.”

To support Alice’s fundraising for Guide Dogs visit www.justgiving.com/Aliceherring

Leamington cafe owner creates Guide Dogs mural ahead of her London Marathon run