Dorm room – dog included! Students are raising puppies on campus as colleges embrace crash course in life skills
Shortly after starting her freshman year at the University of Maryland, Alex Pechler was walking across campus when she saw a group of puppies scampering around in tiny yellow vests.
Though she didn’t know exactly what was going on, “I knew I needed to be a part of it,” Pechler, now 27, tells The Independent.
The puppies were part of a campus program called Terps Raising Pups – a reference to the UMD Terrapins football team – one of several at colleges across the U.S., organized by the Guide Dog Foundation (GDF). Student volunteers sign up to take on the dogs in order to socialize them before they are sent for formal service animal training.
It’s a two-way system, says GDF Director of Public Relations and Marketing Allison Storck, one that benefits the puppies but also the students who learn structure and responsibilities, and get a mental health boost.
“Who doesn’t love the thought of having a dog in a college dorm when you’re going through university?” says Storck. “After one of their dogs comes back for formal training, a lot of the students sign up for another one right after.”
Grayson Shirley, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Georgia, waved off her last trainee, Luke, on February 19. Three days later she took on Luckie, the fourth dog she’s trained.
“I signed up to take Luckie back in December so I had that time to plan when Luke was leaving… so it was really, it was really set up very nicely,” she says.
The first GDF college puppy-raiser program started over 10 years ago at UGA. Since then it has snowballed with programs at 14 other colleges including Texas A&M, Mississippi State University and Clemson, employing over 400 students and a wider network of 1,600 volunteers.
“My love started for the dogs, but then I found out about the mission and the impact that they have on helping people get independence and I fell in love with the people after that,” Pechler says.
Volunteers take the puppies at just eight weeks old, housing them until they are around 16 months. In that time the main focus is to get them socialized. “I can’t think of a better setting than a college campus. You’ve got so many things going on,” Storck tells The Independent.
Students teach the dogs basic house manners and get them used to stimulating or stressful situations that they may encounter as a working dog.
“We will take five, six or seven dogs or more to a sporting event, to a store or a restaurant, or we’ve gone to see a movie before… to practice full group settling, which is just the dog learning how to be comfortable in an environment that they’re not familiar with,” says Shirley, who is now an area coordinator for the UGA program, Dawgs Raising Dogs – a reference to the UGA Bulldogs football team.
Additionally volunteers are taught how to give the puppies basic foundational skills and commands like heel, sit, stay, as well as going to the bathroom appropriately. Such pre-training is crucial due to their future owners.
“These are individuals with disabilities, so they need to be perfect and have very good house manners and reliable routines. Socialization is essential,” Storck says. “They need to be able to be out in the public and not be fazed by anything that could happen and that would distract them.”
