Villagers help train future service dogs

Lynn Cummins, of the Village of Amelia, hugs Ziti, a 13-month-old dog in training with Freedom Service Dogs of America, after a stimuli training session on a dragon boat at Lake Sumter Landing.

A morning at the lake for a group of dogs is bringing them one step closer to starting their service animal careers.

Members of the Sparta 70 and Leatherneck Warriors dragon boat teams in The Villages helped puppy raisers with Freedom Service Dogs with exposure training on Saturday at Lake Sumter.

“When training service dogs, it is more than just teaching them to sit or stay,” said Cathy Kennedy, of the Village of Hawkins and puppy raiser for Freedom Service Dogs. “You have to help them learn to be comfortable with strange noises, with people approaching them and any situation they might be in with their owner.

Freedom Service Dogs pairs custom-trained dogs with veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder, children with neurocognitive disabilities and people with physical challenges. The support of volunteers like Kennedy is essential to helping organizations like Freedom Service Dogs and the local Patriot Service Dogs keep up with demand that rarely slows.

Kennedy said the need for service dogs is at a high.

“Because the dogs have to go through two years of training, there is never a way to expedite getting a veteran their dog,” she said. “And the waiting list for our training, as well as most service dog training schools, is just getting longer.”

A Growing Need

Patriot Service Dogs, a nonprofit in The Villages, also trains service dogs for veterans with PTSD and mobility issues.

One in seven adults will be affected by PTSD at some point in their lives, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Service dogs can help with PTSD symptoms like anxiety by providing comfort and physical pressure.

Service dogs also help with flashbacks and nightmares by gently nudging their owners to bring them back to the present, and they can provide personal space by standing in front of or behind them.

Erin Conley, director of communications for Freedom Service Dogs, said the animals are trained to provide a variety of services.

“We absolutely train our dogs for veterans and those with PTSD,” she said. “We also train dogs to assist with people who have mobility issues, or children and adults who have autism spectrum disorder.”

Conley said there is a notable difference in demand for service dogs. Its list is hovering around 90 people, and in 2022 the organization fully trained 26 dogs.

Conley said that is about what it can accomplish in a year, but the waitlist keeps growing.

“It very well could be because more people get physical and mental health diagnoses that benefit from service dogs,” she said. “But we can only give people dogs at a certain pace, because training is more than two years long.”

Patriot Service Dogs currently is training 21 dogs, and the demand for their dogs also is high, said Julie Sanderson, founder and president.

“We always have more applicants than dogs, and I’ve never had a dog just sitting around,” she said. “We know there is always a person ready and waiting for their dog when we begin training.”

How to Help

Freedom Service Dogs benefits from more volunteers to increase their training capacity. While monetary donations also are important, Conley said even if expenses are paid, dog training can’t move forward without volunteers.

Kennedy said the training exercise Saturday let the handlers know how the dogs react to a stimulus like a boat coming to a dock.

“You must be able to read your service dog during training,” she said. “When we go to see the boats, I have to know if they are calm, excited, or nervous and anxiously backing up.”

Kennedy, who has worked with Freedom Service Dogs for about two years but has raised service dogs with other organizations since 1997, said if service dogs do not receive appropriate training at the right ages, they might not pass evaluations to become a service dog.

Freedom Service Dog raiser Joan Kessel is a member of the Leatherneck Warriors and said the team has participated in training service dogs a few times before.

“The goal is to give them as many experiences as possible while training so they won’t be scared of things,” said Kessel, of the Village of Lake Deaton.

Kessel said puppy raising is a difficult role to fill because you are not just training a pet, you are training an animal to work and help someone in need.

She said if a raiser does not notice a dog’s cues and raises them to be too anxious, they cannot work as a service dog.

By bringing the dogs to the dragon boat practice, the raisers learn about each dog’s comfort level with crowds.

“The team will bring the boat to the shore and get out with their paddles and equipment and walk past the dogs,” Kessel said. “If they are calm and hold their sit, or lie down, then that’s really good. If they start to back up, they might not be ready for that much activity and we walk them backward.”

Because of inflation, the cost to raise a service dog also has skyrocketed.

“Between getting a dog from one of our breeders and the cost of food, toys and vet bills, along with training, it costs around $30,000 to raise a service dog,” Sanderson said. “So we take training the dogs seriously, because we don’t want that funding to go to waste.”

Because Patriot Service Dogs is a nonprofit, they operate strictly from donations. Sanderson said it has become harder to stretch each donation because of growing bills.

“We’ve trained 61 dogs since 2009, and we always need funding,” she said. “When we get more funding we can get more dogs and help more people.”

To support Patriot Service Dogs, visit patriotservicedogs.org. To support Freedom Service Dogs, visit freedomservicedogs.org.

Senior writer Maddie Cutler can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5386, or [email protected].

Partly cloudy in the morning followed by scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon. High 87F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms before midnight. Low 76F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.

Sun and clouds mixed with a slight chance of thunderstorms during the afternoon. High around 90F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

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