Breeders & Veterinary Medicine

All puppies will be procured from AKC recognized professional breeders, who document dog bloodlines without evidence of inheritable negative traits.  Veterinary, pedigree and immunization records must be available for inspection.  Specifically, hip evaluation,  elbow evaluation, cardiac exam and ophthalmologist evaluation must be completed prior to accepting any puppy.  Our vet completes an evaluation of the puppy, and follows her care for the next two years.

Breeders will agree to take back any dog upon the Program discovering an unreported inheritable disease in the family line.  A written contract delineating breeder (and Program) responsibilities must be signed.

Preferred Service Dog Breeds

All potential service dogs will be selected from purebred Golden Retrievers or Labrador Retrievers.  This is consistent with other service dog programs, where typically 90% of service dogs (hearing-disabled, seeing-disabled, mobility, PTSD veterans and children with developmental difficulties) are from these two breeds.  Their combination of excellent temperament, size, intelligence, train-ability, friendliness to strangers,  and desire to please are obvious and well-tested over time.

Puppy Raisers

Puppy raisers are volunteer families who agree to care for our dogs during the first 18 months of the dog's life.   Obedience, basic task training and socialization are the goals.   Typically, the dog will be 8-9 weeks old when placed with these families.  These families give the dogs a loving place to live while providing the necessary stimulation, socialization, and early simple training (e.g., “come” “stay” “heel”).  The Program provides 40 hours of training during this period.

The families must commit to an initial orientation, obedience training, and visits to the Program site (and staff visits to the home).  During these visits we monitor progress and offer assistance required by the family.  To prepare the dogs for their future service work, puppy raisers expose these puppies to a wide variety of people, places, situations and experiences.