Teaching a young dog new tricks

As a volunteer full-time puppy raiser for NEADS World Class Service Dogs, Shrewsbury resident Leah Bell is responsible for teaching and reinforcing basic obedience to Jettie, a 17-month-old black Labrador retriever, and, most importantly, socializing the dog to sights and sounds in the outside world.

On a recent “field trip,” Bell, who is a 20-year-old Becker College student, took Jettie for a walk around Salem, where she saw a bunch of people in Halloween costumes. Jettie was not the least bit distracted.

“Which is so important,” Bell said. “Service dogs are supposed to go with the flow and that’s exactly what she did. She kept her focus on me and didn’t care about anything else she saw.”

NEADS (National Education for Assistance Dog Services), which is based in Princeton, is seeking more volunteer full-time puppy raisers like Bell to take service dogs in training into their homes and look after them for 12-16 months, provide daily training, socialization and physical exercising, and devote time, energy and love.

NEADS opened in 1976 and focused on training dogs for people who had hearing difficulties. Its programs have greatly expanded over the years to also breed, raise, train and place service dogs with adults and children who are physically disabled, veterans with PTSD, and children with autism. Since its founding, NEADS has trained over 1,800 service dogs and, at any given time, has over 400 active teams (service dog and client) throughout the country.

Kate Sullivan, NEADS’ volunteer manager, said NEADs currently has about 35 volunteer full-time puppy raisers around New England.

“We’re looking to increase that number,” Sullivan said.

The full-time raiser program complements NEADS’ Prison PUP Program.

“Our volunteers have the once-in-a-lifetime experience – or hopefully more – of preparing these amazing dogs for a career of helping others with disabilities or providing therapeutic assistance in a variety of professional settings,” NEADS CEO Gerry DeRoche said. “And the added stressors and isolation created by the COVID-19 pandemic has made the need for our highly-trained service dog more critical than ever before.”

Jettie is the second puppy Bell has worked with in the volunteer full-time raiser program.

“It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” said Bell, who did an internship at NEADS when she was a senior at Shrewsbury High. “To see them grow up and become service dogs is the most rewarding thing. You’re saving lives.”

Puppies are eight weeks old when they go to their raiser, Sullivan said.

“The volunteers go through orientation prior so they know what to expect the first couple weeks,” Sullivan said, “and we’re checking in with them every week.”

The puppies progress through field trip levels and gain comfort out in public.

“It’s not full throttle right away,” Sullivan said. “They ease them into it then gradually increase what the dog is exposed to.”

Bell, whose college classes are remote this semester, said she will soon be able to bring Jettie into a museum or grocery store. Bell said Jettie is used to seeing people in face coverings.

Weekly training sessions between NEADS trainers and the volunteer puppy raisers are being held virtually due to the pandemic.

Raisers help prepare the puppies for task training with NEADS trainers. NEADS service dogs learn 50-60 tasks (opening a door, pushing an elevator button, alerting their human partner to an alarm clock, for example) and commands that they execute with precision, accuracy and consistency.

“They can’t learn those tasks without having learned what the raisers have taught them,” Sullivan said. “The raisers teach them base knowledge and we kind of build off that for task training.”

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For example, Sullivan said, raisers play a game called “Get It/Yes,” in which the dog goes and gets a toy, brings it back to the raiser and puts it directly in his or her hand.

“During task training,” Sullivan said, “we teach the dog to pick up different objects, whether it’s a phone or a credit card or keys, pick it up and bring it back to the trainer. That’s really useful for a lot of our clients. Without the ‘Get It/Yes’ base knowledge, the dogs wouldn’t be able to learn that task.”

Sullivan said all dogs learn the same commands until they come for task training.

Task training takes about 6-8 months, Sullivan said, so after about 18-24 months (first with raiser, then with trainer) the dog is ready to be paired with a client.

“We don’t pinpoint what they will be doing until they come back for task training,” Sullivan said, “but we do take into account what raisers say, ‘This dog really loves kids or this dog really bonds with men or with women.’ That helps us make the match. Depending how the dog does in their task training that helps us decided what kind of track the dog will go on.”

When the raiser is done, the dog may also be chosen as a breeder.

Becoming a volunteer full-time puppy raiser is a commitment, an important one.

“I can’t thank our raisers enough,” Sullivan said. “We wouldn’t be able to put out world class service dogs without them. We always call them the heart of NEADS. They give so much to us, their time and love and they are just amazing people. I can’t speak highly enough of all our raisers.”

More information about NEADS volunteer full-time puppy raiser program is available at neads.org.

Bell, an animal lover, has a chocolate Lab and two cats of her own. She said all four animals interact well.

Her first experience as a volunteer full-time raiser, with a black Lab named Murray, prepared her for Jettie.

“The biggest thing I learned was patience,” Bell said. “I went into this thinking, ‘These dogs need to be perfect. No mistakes are allowed to happen,’ and I was told, ‘No. They’re dogs, not robots. They can make mistakes. You just need to work with them on it.’ Jettie is very spot on, but patience is a key part of this.”

Parting with the dog is difficult.

“They become your best friend,” Bell said. “It’s bittersweet (to say goodbye), but it’s worth it.”

Her experience with NEADS, going back to her high school internship, has been so impactful that she plans to become a service dog trainer when she graduates from Becker. She is majoring in animal care and psychology.

“It’s incredible,” Bell said. “Through this I realized this is what I want to do as a career. At graduation (a twice-a-year NEADS event that celebrates the partnership between a client and his or her service dog), I cry every time. These dogs save lives, which is amazing, and that I get to be part of that experience for somebody is amazing.”