Alamo, Service Dog
Male Anatolian Shepherd mix
Adopted from Town Lake Animal Center, Austin
Dogs end up in shelters for a variety of reasons, many of which are behavior related. Today I'm addressing sub-adult, big-brained, active dogs that can be very challenging pets for many households. These dogs need to be kept busy, their mind and their bodies need to work, if they are to be happy and relaxed. These sorts of dogs often find their own job to do if an adequate one is not provided for them by their owners. My own crazy cattledog once decided his job was to un-stuff the sofa...he did a very thorough job and that is a story for another day.
There are some programs that go searching in shelters for just these sorts of dogs: to find them, train them up right, and place them where they can excel.
The Prison Pet Program in Gig Harbor has placed over 700 dogs (as service, therapy or sometimes pet dogs) since 1981. The dogs are cared for and trained by inmates who benefit greatly from their time with the dogs as well. It is a win-win-win situation for the dogs, the inmates, the shelters and the communities that the dogs go into. Project POOCH at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Oregon pairs up shelter dogs with juvenile offenders and both canine and human team mates' lives are made better through their time together.
Texas Hearing and Service Dogs "trains dogs to assist Texans living with hearing or mobility challenges", using dogs from local shelters and taking the responsibility to find loving homes for those dogs that do not make it through the service dog training. This facility has a full time staff of canine professionals as well as volunteers to help in the the training program and will be offering workshops to help other organizations learn to do the work they do.
On a smaller scale, local law enforcement agencies sometimes have the staff to train their own working dogs. "Dog goes from stray to patrolling county jail"
