Service Dogs: Canine Companions
Canine Companions for Independence - Exceptional Dogs for Exceptional People
This non-profit organization is supported in part by the late cartoonist, Charles Schulz, and his wife Jean, for whom the Headquarters is named. It is a living tribute to the love that the creator of Snoopy and the entire Peanuts gang, held for dogs, and the people these wonderful dogs assist.
In a classroom decorated to look like a family living room, two women chat, the floor strewn with dry dog food. When the telephone on the corner table rings, a dog immediately runs from an adjoining room and purposefully lies down in front of the ringing phone. On his way, he’s ignored the women and the food, his full attention on the phone until he is given the command to get up . Focused? You bet, and it’s all in a day’s work for this dog. He’s being trained as a Hearing Dog by Canine Companions for Independence, the oldest and largest assistance dog organization for in the world for people with physical and developmental disabilities.
Formed in 1975 to provide assistance dogs to people with these disabilities, this nonprofit organization is based in Santa Rosa, California and has five regional centers nationwide. With its vast network of employees and volunteers, CCI’s mission is to “serve the needs of people with disabilities by providing trained service, hearing and social dogs and by providing continuing support to ensure the success of the working team.”
By any measure, their mission is a success. Almost 1,500 ‘teams’, as dogs and their people are known, have been matched since the first Canine Companion was placed in 1978. The need still exceeds the available trained dogs - nationally, 235 people are on a waiting list to receive a Canine Companion. The increased independence that having one of these dogs can bring to a disabled person’s life means that the program continues to grow in importance and popularity, but raising and training an assistance dog is a time-consuming process.
How Canine Companions Works
Four types of dogs are trained by CCI:
- Service Dogs perform helpful tasks for people who use wheelchairs or other serious mobility limitations in their arms and/or legs.
- Hearing Dogs are trained to alert deaf or hard of hearing people to sounds such as fire alarms, telephones, doorbells and alarm clocks.
- Skilled Companion Dogs provide help to disabled children, or adults whose disability requires the assistance of another person.
- Facility Dogs work with professional caregivers in hospitals, hospices and nursing facilities to interact with patients.
These dogs perform a wide variety of functions. They pick up items that have been dropped on the floor, open doors (including those to refrigerators and ovens), flip light switches, bark when the microwave timer rings and pull wheelchairs.
But they assist their human team members in less obvious ways. Brushing a dog helps maintain dexterity, touching and talking to a dog promote physical and verbal activity. For someone who may feel isolated or as though they are being treated differently because of their disability, a dog can dispel those feelings by being a loving and constant companion.
Dogs are provided at no charge to qualified applicants. But there are substantial costs involved in raising and training a Canine Companion, about $10,000 per dog. These costs are met though charitable donations, grants, legacies and corporate support. But what could possibly cost so much just to train a dog?
Puppies
A dog needs such special qualities to be a successful Canine Companion that CCI breeds its own dogs, primarily Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers. The process starts with Breeder Caretakers - volunteers who keep the special dogs selected to breed future service dogs. Caretakers provide a loving, healthy and secure home for the breeder dogs, assist the mother dog though whelping, and raise the puppies until they go to live at the CCI center. Critical to the early life of the pups are socialization techniques that CCI uses, and Caretakers are trained in these approved methods.
Once the puppies are eight weeks old they go to the CCI center for health exams and evaluation. Then they are placed with Puppy Raisers. These volunteers raise a puppy until it is about 16 months of age. During this time, Puppy Raisers provide food, shelter, necessary veterinary care, and most important, love and training.
Socialization and good manners are paramount to a good Canine Companion, and this learning begins early. Puppy Raisers and their dogs attend regular obedience classes, submitting monthly reports on the dog’s progress. Dogs are forbidden to eat human food, must be housebroken, regularly groomed, exercised and socialized. They are expected to be constant companions in their human families - most even sleep in the Puppy Raisers bedroom.
Puppy Raisers socialize their dogs in a variety of ways - many take the puppies to work with them, others take the puppy along on errands and vacations. Whether it’s a short trip to the market or a long driving holiday, each new experience and activity helps prepare the puppy for its future work as a Canine Companion.
Returning The Puppy
Ask a Puppy Raiser about the biggest challenge they face and the answer is often ‘giving the puppy back’. Although they know all along that they are foster parents, and that their hard work will help transform the life of someone else, it’s hard to say good bye. But the day comes when the dog goes back to CCI for advanced training, and for the dog, this is where the work really starts.
Evaluation
After a year with their Puppy Raiser families, CCI dogs have been introduced to all sorts of commands and situations. Having mastered the basics, like ‘sit’ and ‘stay’, the dogs are returned to CCI and undergo the first in a series of post-puppyhood evaluations.
The dogs are examined by an on-site veterinarian, then judged by staff trainers. Dogs need to be able to work consistently in spite of distractions, and have a temperament that enjoys their challenging work. Not every dog will meet these strict criteria. Does it mean that they’re failures? Not at all. These well behaved dogs go to live with families as cherished pets. They are offered first to their Puppy Raiser families, then to the public and there is a long waiting list for these wonderful dogs.
Advanced Training
The dogs that do make the first cut begin their six-month long advanced training. Having been evaluated, their training now focuses on a job suited to the dog’s personality and natural abilities. This is where dogs become specialized and are instructed in 50 commands, some very specific to their future role as a Hearing, Service, Skilled Companion or Facility Dog. These special commands include:
Foot: tells the dog to place its front paws on the foot pedals of the wheelchair
Dress: tells the dog to place its head through the collar, pack or vest
Car: tells the dog to get into a vehicle
Light: tells the dog to flip a light switch up
Switch: tells the dog to flip a light switch down
Get: tells the dog to pick up an item
Training the Trainers
It takes a remarkable amount of patience and commitment to train a CCI dog. Instructors go through a rigorous three-year apprenticeship before becoming certified.
They begin with a 10-week basic course, which introduces them to the puppy raising program; they study dog behavior theory, dog care and commands. Apprentices then follow experienced Instructors through their training duties, becoming familiar with the different commands and training methods used for each of the four types of service dogs.
But a dog is only half the team, and Instructors spend more time working with people than with dogs. Learning the special requirements of persons with various disabilities is crucial to the Apprentice’s education, because the Instructors ultimately match participants with service dogs. This interaction between participant and Instructor is so close that they often form friendships that last for years.
Final Training
Dogs are evaluated throughout their advanced training and some continue to retire as family pets. At the end of six months, the remaining dogs finally meet the people who will become their team members. Participants, who receive the dog at no charge, are interviewed to ensure that a Canine Companion will further their independence, then they go to one of the five regional CCI centers for training.
Participant training is an important part of the program’s success. Not only must a person learn to utilize the dog’s training and abilities to the fullest degree, participants become the dog’s primary caregiver, so each member of the team is truly dependent upon the other.
For two weeks, participants and their dogs live together, either in dormitories at the Santa Rosa headquarters, or in hotel rooms near the regional centers. Closely supervised, the teams works together so they can perform tasks as a unit. At the end of this training, dog and participant become a Graduate team. The informal Graduation ceremony brings together Puppy Raisers, Instructors, dogs and participants, so that everyone involved in putting a team together can share in the accomplishments they have made together.
But the training doesn’t stop at graduation. After 45 days together at home, the team returns to a regional center for a review with instructors. They also pass a public certification test that provides the human team member with a card stating his or her ability to handle the dog in public. On-going visits to a training center and workshops ensure that the team continues to work together successfully and can integrate new commands and lifestyle changes into their life together.
The Team
Bonding with a dog is something that all dog lovers know well, but the bond that exists between a CCI team is remarkable. Dependent upon the Canine Companion to perform daily talks that many of us take for granted, the dog becomes an extension of the person. And for the dog, the person is the primary source of love and care. Dogs take their jobs seriously, and many dogs learn special commands tailored to their team members needs.
Dogs work for about eight years. Then they retire, and become the pet of their team member (or are returned to their Puppy Raiser as family pets). Participants go on to partner with another dog, again building a team.
What You Can Do To Help
What does a dancing Snoopy have to do with all this? Since CCI receives no government funding, it is supported by contributions from individuals, foundations and corporations. The late Charles Schulz, Snoopy’s creator, and his wife Jean Schulz have been very involved in supporting CCI - the Santa Rosa Headquarters is named for them, and she remains active participants in both everyday tasks and fund-raising efforts.
Volunteers also make a tremendous contribution - they care for breeder dogs, raise puppies and work at the headquarters and regional centers. There are over 3000 volunteers nationwide, but more help is always welcome. We encourage you to visit the CCI website for more information, or call their national headquarters at 1-800-572-2275. They are indeed training ‘Exceptional Dogs for Exceptional People’.
Please visit the CCI website to read the real-life experiences of Puppy Raisers and the stories of Graduates who tell how CCI dogs have changed their lives.
Our great thanks to Canine Companions for Independence for allowing us to visit their facility and for answering our questions.
For more information, contact
P.O.Box 446
Santa Rosa CA 94502-0446
1-707-577-1700 Voice
1-707-577-1756 TDD
