Service dogs like Zebulon, shown with Amanda Bennett, are valued at $25,000 to $40,000 but provided free of charge by nonprofit organizations. Training dogs to perform the specific tasks their handlers require is a slow process and many applicants wait a year or more before they are matched to a canine companion.
Amanda Bennett spent almost three years waiting for her perfect match. Tall and handsome with a great sense of humor, he was everything she’d hoped for, right down to his wet nose and wagging tail.
Rheumatoid arthritis has kept Bennett in a wheelchair since second grade. The 22-yearold Grand Strand artist is one of 50 million Americans facing life with a disability. Only a fortunate few will find help from a task-trained service dog like Zebulon, a 4-year-old Labradoodle trained to lend a paw with everyday chores.
“He can pull the laundry basket and help me load the washer and put clothes in the dryer,” says Bennett. “It’s a big help with my back.”
Zebbie, as Bennett likes to call her new best friend, hasn’t strayed far from her side since their May introduction. Before being matched with her companion by Carolina Canines for Service, Inc., a nonprofit group that provides free service dogs to people with disabilities, Bennett filled out a detailed application and provided video of her typical day and all its obstacles. Zebbie fit the bill because he’s powerful enough to pull her wheelchair and open heavy doors, but passive enough to stand aside during MRIs and medical exams.
At home, he loves to close drawers and cabinets in Bennett’s kitchen, even when she’s still figuring out what’s in them for dinner. Bennett can’t bring herself to correct Zebbie when he’s clearly tickled with his accomplishment, so she just ends up laughing. Like any good relationship, they are a work in progress.
Besides the myriad physical tasks he performs on command, Zebbie’s presence also breaches the silent social boundaries often encountered by people using wheelchairs. “Some people hurt my feelings when they stare and whisper,” Bennett says.
“With Zebbie, I kind of open up a little more. And people aren’t looking at me, they’re looking at the dog and they’re more friendly.”
Looking for a few good mutts
In addition to assisting people with mobility impairments, service dogs can help autistic children connect with the world, detect the presence of peanuts for someone with a life-threatening allergy, and help battle-scarred veterans ward off anxiety attacks.
Finding the right dogs and training them to perform dozens of specialized tasks is a slow, meticulous process that can take years and often falls to determined and dedicated nonprofit organizations. Relying on volunteer networks of breeders, trainers and donors, organizations like Carolina Canines, Columbia-based Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services (PAALS) and North Myrtle Beach-based Canine Angels are unleashing hope for South Carolinians in need, one dog at a time.
To meet the ever-growing demand for service animals, trainers and evaluators routinely troll shelters in search of dogs with the right physical attributes and, most importantly, the right temperament. About 80 to 90 percent of Carolina Canines’ working dogs are rescues, but even for the most promising candidates, success isn’t guaranteed.
“It takes a really special dog to survive the shelter and remain happy-go-lucky,” says Marianna Thompson, a trainer who once logged countless hours scouring South Carolina shelters for Carolina Canines. Some dogs are too shy or startle too easily. Others don’t seem to want a steady day job. “You have to see if they have the inclination to work,” she says.
Besides biddable dispositions, service dogs need strong hips and elbows. Any hint of dysplasia or arthritis will rule them out. Trainers generally have X-rays taken at regular intervals during the dog’s development. “About 40 percent of the dogs won’t make it to final placements, mostly due to hip issues,” says Pat Hairston, of Carolina Canines.
Pups with the right stuff typically spend 18 to 24 months in foster care with volunteers who socialize them, gradually introduce them to new experiences and help train them to perform common tasks. It’s a long-term commitment that makes foster families hard to come by. Investing time and energy on a dog that’s going to end up loving someone else doesn’t appeal to everyone, although some volunteers say it’s like sending a successful child off to college.
For 20 months, the Roskow family of Murrell's Inlet fostered a lab pup named Eve and attended weekly group-training sessions with other foster families. After advanced training, Eve went on to assist a wounded veteran. “Training Eve began a new adventure for the family,” says Ann Roskow, who has dealt with disability in her own family. “You get excited when she learns something new and satisfaction seeing her go on to help somebody else.”
Service dogs are expected to be well behaved in every environment and to perform their jobs unobtrusively, so the training standards are necessarily high. Even late in the process, a dog may be cut for a variety of reasons. Carolina Canines had high hopes for Titus, a bright and agreeable Labrador retriever, until they discovered that screaming children distressed him, which immediately disqualified him as a service dog. “If you’re a mom in a restaurant and your toddler crawls across the floor, you want to know that someone’s dog is not going to launch out from under a table and do something inappropriate,” Hairston says. But the training didn’t go to waste. Titus became an ambassador for Carolina Canines and now delights minor league baseball fans at the Charleston RiverDogs home games by retrieving bats.
Second chances all around
Some organizations, including Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services, have found success training service animals by partnering with prisons. Since 2009, inmates at Kershaw Correctional Institute have helped train PAALS service dogs. Carolina Canines forged a unique partnership with the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, where inmates help train dogs exclusively for wounded warriors. Because inmates can work with the dogs around the clock, training time is often cut in half. The brig program has also had a positive impact on the inmates, says Chief Warrant Officer John Nolan.
“I’ve been able to take former troublemakers and give them a shot [as trainers],” he says. “For the most part, they completely turn around.”
Even with inmates and foster families on the case, training service dogs is a marathon, not a sprint, and the long wait for a match sometimes prompts beleaguered consumers to deal with fly-by-night suppliers. Jen Rogers, founder and executive director of PAALS, has seen buyers get scammed online and off, by people peddling service dogs, allegedly trained and ready to assist. But reputable organizations don’t work on a first-come, first-served basis and trained dogs aren’t stacked up in inventory. Matching the right dog with its life partner is a slow, painstaking process, she says.
“People buy a service dog and have it shipped. Then it damages their house and bites their kids,” says Rogers. “They want a quick fix and that’s not the way it works.”
She recommends those in need of a service dog look for organizations that are affiliated with Assistance Dogs International (ADI), a coalition of nonprofit training organizations. Potential handlers should also speak with clients, attend training sessions, and understand the terms of all agreements related to the animal. Reputable agencies usually retain ownership of their valuable working dogs. If an animal is mistreated, the organization will take the dog back. And when a relationship doesn’t work out through no fault of the handler, the nonprofit will pursue another match.
Homegrown helper
Golden retrievers and Labradors are usually the top choices of service dog trainers, but no breed is excluded. Under the right conditions, even a disruptive pet can be trained to become a service animal.
While other 16-year-olds were fretting about prom dates and summer jobs, Ben Lay was wondering how long Ewing’s Sarcoma would take to kill him. Nine months of chemotherapy and weeks of radiation granted him a two-year reprieve, but the rare and ruthless bone cancer returned with a vengeance. At 18, the formerly athletic teen underwent perilous surgical procedures that saved his life, but cost him the use of his right leg, which Lay says he swings “like a peg-leg pirate” when he walks.
His former fiancé had bought him a pewter pit bull pup named Rahja. Once tiny enough to fit in cupped hands, the dog quickly exploded into 70-plus pounds of unrestrained muscle, too powerful for an owner with precarious balance to handle. Lay was almost resigned to giving her up until a chance meeting with Rick Kaplan of Canine Angels. Kaplan’s non-profit trains service dogs exclusively for injured veterans, but he agreed to help Lay train Rahja—with the implicit understanding that success was far from guaranteed.
“Rahja … was uncontrollable and completely untrained,” says Kaplan, who entered into a month-long, often physical contest of wills with the dog. “It wasn’t a pretty sight.”
Working with Kaplan for three hours every night, Lay watched Rahja evolve from couch-eating beast to well-mannered service dog in training that now accompanies him almost everywhere. Rahja has already learned to retrieve anything Lay drops and bring him things at night, so he won’t have to strap on his cumbersome leg brace. The experience has made Lay a passionate advocate for service animals.
“It’s a total story of second chances all the way around,” he says. “Once you have a service dog, you almost feel like keeping her to yourself is a waste. You want to help others find out how to get them.”
Bennett is equally eager to share Zebbie with the world. He’s already opened more doors than she could have imagined. “Thank you all! And especially everyone involved at Carolina Canines and those who raised and trained Zeb,” she wrote on the organization’s Facebook page. “I cannot express how much this means to me. It truly is the greatest gift—a new start for me.”
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