Raising Service Dog Puppies

Service dog organizations utilize volunteers who must be at least 18 years old in most cases to raise the puppies for approximately the first 12 14 months of the dog s life.

Raising service dog puppies. With the same access rights as service dogs pups can go with you to most places. Raising a puppy is a fine way to teach kids to give back and help older students earn community service hours and build an impressive resume. Volunteer puppy raisers provide specially bred puppies a safe home take them to obedience classes serve up a healthy diet provide socialization opportunities and give lots of love. Assistance dogs aren t just born they re raised.

We ll provide the puppy. This involves bringing the puppy everywhere and introducing them to what life may be like when they re placed with their veteran. The service dog raising program experience requires a great deal of commitment time energy and focus. Raising a service dog requires you to spend time socializing and training the dog for the first 12 to 18 months of his life.

Each hour spent caring for a canine companions puppy is vital to its development as a future assistance dog. With permission many employers allow raisers to take puppies to work too. Assess your ability to raise a service dog puppy. The pup is returned to one of our two campuses for formal guidework training when they are 15 months of age or older.

A foster commits to raising a puppy for the entire time the dog is in the service dog program. Volunteer puppy raisers receive a pup when they are approximately 8 weeks old teach them good manners and provide socialization experiences for about the first year and a half of the pups lives. Puppy raisers teach basic obedience proper house manners and help them to become calm and confident in all situations. As a foster family you will socialize and train a puppy up to 18 24 months.

It s an unforgettable and rewarding experience and mostservice dog raisers choose to participate in the program again and again. Guide dog and service dog puppies are placed with carefully screened foster families known as puppy raisers when they are 8 weeks old. Become a puppy raiser guide dog foundation join our puppy raising team as some of our most passionate and dedicated volunteers puppy raisers provide the loving homes that care for our foundation puppies until the dogs are old enough to enter our certified training programs. At any given time we have 150 200 puppies in loving puppy raiser homes.