National Service Dogs is looking for new volunteers as they are dealing with a bit of a “baby boom.” “We have five litters of puppies that have been born over the last couple of months and they’re all going to be future service dogs with National Service Dogs,” Meghan Kraehling, volunteer coordinator for National Service Dogs, said. “We’re looking for volunteers to help raise them as part of their service dog journey.” Volunteers, known as puppy raisers, are tasked with providing a safe, loving home for a future service dog during the first year of its life. “During that time, they teach them how to be a nice, well-manner dog in their home,” Kraehling explained. Puppy raisers typically welcome the dogs into their family when they are around 8-weeks old. All food, veterinary care and training jackets and collars are provided along with 24/7 access to health support. National Service Dogs is looking for people who can regularly attended puppy training classes in the evening and live within 45 minutes of Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge. Eventually, the dogs will go on to help people across the country by providing support to children with autism, veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or they could become facility dogs. On Thursday, CTV News got to meet some of the future service dogs at a home in Cambridge. Jennifer Gibb and her husband have been puppy raisers in the past, but they are now a whelping home. Whelping homes offer a comfortable place for dogs to give birth and help raise the puppies until they are ready to go to puppy raisers. “It’s a lot of work but it’s fun work. It’s gratifying work. Sometimes it’s hard work,” Gibb reflected while holding one of the puppies. “You do have to say goodbye to the puppy and there’s no getting around it – it’s hard. When I talk to other people, when I’ve been out in the community with the puppy we raised, they really admired the work but they say, ‘I could never do it because I could never give up the dog because it would be too hard.’ The reality is it is hard, but the other reality is that these dogs go off to serve people who really need them. And so, you do hard things in life, but you get a lot of joy out of raising them as well.” Gibb said it’s a rewarding experience to help see the dogs through such an important part of their lives. “The amazing thing is that there’s a time period in a puppy’s life, the three-to-twelve-week mark, where they’re just sponges and you have to have a few exposures and they learn a skill and we’ve been just amazed at how these puppies can learn things.” She said National Service Dogs provides all the resources needed to make the process easy. “You don’t have to worry about what do you need to do next or how do you train a puppy. You go to puppy classes and they have professional dog training staff that help you along the way so you’re never alone in the journey. It’s a great journey.” Right now, National Service Dogs have 19 puppies that will need puppy raisers. They will be ready to go to their new homes between Feb. 6 and Feb. 27. More information about puppy raisers, and other volunteer opportunities, is available on the National Service Dogs website.
