By Molly Igoe
News Editor
Assistant Director of Intercultural Affairs Tya Pope has a new shadow on campus in the form of Gabe, the 11-week-old black lab puppy she is training to eventually become a therapy dog.
This is the first time Pope has trained a puppy with the Canine Partner for Life (CPL) program.Pope first got Gabe when he was eight weeks old.
Her volunteer position involves teaching Gabe basic socialization, such as house breaking.
She said. “It has been an adventure, and it’s only been, what, three weeks?”
Pope has had dogs as pets previously, but her last dog, a pug, was very afraid of everything, unlike Gabe.
“They [CPL] liked the name Gabe, because they wanted a strong name for him,” she said.
“He is ready to explore everything with his face, just jump right in. He’s a very energetic, happy little guy and loves playing with his brothers when he goes to puppy training classes. I just love him; he’s a lot of fun to have around. He keeps me on my toes,” she said.
According to CPL’s brochure, “For 26 years, CPL has been dedicated to training service dogs, home companion dogs, residential companion dogs, and courthouse companion dogs to assist individuals who have a wide range of physical and cognitive disabilities.”
CPL helps people with a number of disabilities including muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, diabetes, cerebal palsy, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), spinal cord injuries, spinal bifida, and Parkinson’s Disease.
Pope has been a board member of CPL since August.
“One of my good friends is the director of development there, and so he told me all about his work and the great things he’s been doing, so I said, ‘How I can get involved and help out?’ I then found out that they were going to be in need of additional community puppy homes,” she said. “They raise puppies through 11 prisons over Maryland and Pennsylvania, but they also have community homes with just ordinary folks in the community, no special training or anything like that.”
Raising a service dog requires paying special attention to small things, like the dietary health of the puppy.
“He loves his Nyla bones, and right now we’re not doing any special snacks; we’re just doing his food as treats, because for the first couple of months they want to make sure that his stomach adjusts to all the changes and the stress, and then we can start doing things like Milk Bones and other dog treats. Right now, he’s doing California Natural puppy food (chicken and rice),” she said.
Gabe was from a litter of nine, with five boys and four girls; two of his siblings ended up in the program that matches service dogs-in-training with incarcerated people, and the rest are in community homes, so he still gets to see them.
The community puppy homes raise the puppies for a little over a year. Afterward, they go back to the kennel for an intensive year-and-a-half long training period to learn specifically about the disability they’ll be working with. This program does not train seeing eye dogs; these pups deal with other medical issues like cardiac alert and seizure alert.
Shortly after his intensive training, Gabe will hopefully be matched with a person.
“That person will have been on the list for a little while, and [will have] gone through several interviews and things like that to figure out what they need, what dog would be best suited for them. Then they’ll gauge Gabe’s personality with the future recipient’s personality and make sure they’re a good match,” Pope said.
Once the pair are matched, they go through team training, which is a three week process.
“They go on trips together so they’re used to being in public together and learn what the commands are and all that kind of stuff,” she said. “They learn more about the equipment the dog is supposed to have. He will get a harness that has a handle once he gets into the kennel, and he is supposed to wear a gentle leader, so that’s most of the equipment that he will have. Then they graduate, and I get to come back and see him off into the future. So there’s lots of tears because everyone is so excited but also sad.”
Those who donated and named Gabe also get to see him off.
“Then he’ll go on to be a service dog if that’s what he’s capable of doing, for eight to ten years, if he can handle it. Then the person that he’s with will go through that process of using him however they see fit, and eventually if that person needs another replacement dog, they’ll sign up and get on the list again, and go through the whole process again,” she said.
Pope said that Gabe loves all the attention on campus.
“The big thing I try to let everyone know is that he is allowed to be pet—that’s part of the process. He needs to be socialized and get used to being touched by different people all the time. It’s important that I’m holding him first, because it can be traumatizing and scary to have all these big people looming over him and trying to grab at him. As he gets bigger, I won’t be able to hold him, so we’ll have to kneel down to his level. It’s always important to ask permission first, especially with him. When you have a regular service dog, you’re not supposed to pet them at all, and you’re really not supposed to approach them because they’re always in work mode, so that’s really important,” she said.
If students have any questions or want to know more, Pope said that she is always happy to stop and talk about the program.
“I think it’s good for me to have this experience because I want to learn more about the organization and how things work and operate, and what they do. It’s been really great having this side of the experience. The [CPL] board loves having puppies around, because most of the dogs that are around, they can’t pet,” she said. “He’s been a hit everywhere he goes.”
To learn more about the CPL, go to www.k94life.org.