This volunteer opportunity is for people who LOVE dogs, are hard workers, and truly want to make a difference in another person's life. You will learn a lot about dogs through this experience. This volunteer opportunity is very gratifying, as you will see the dog develop because of your love and training. The first 6 months you have a puppy are very time intensive - house training, bonding with it, training it in basic obedience, and socializing it carefully (to avoid scaring the puppy) to new situations and experiences. You will need to vigorously walk the 3month+ old pup several times a day, and by age 6 months, it needs 1 mile/day walk and 5 minutes a day running in a fenced area. Our Volunteer Puppy Raisers are essential to us. We can't produce out service dogs without our volunteer puppy raisers! We use a class structure to train our puppies, 3-4 puppies and their raisers, led by our trainers, to teach the puppies to work under high distraction. Once a class of puppy raisers is formed (3-4 raisers), we'll adopt mixed breed puppies from Rescue Organizations. Our recipients tend to be in wheelchairs, and drop things, so we raise and train larger dogs that retrieve. Hearing alert dogs may be smaller. Most of the puppies will be lab or shepherd mixes. Volunteers will be expected to attend weekly training classes until the puppy is a year old. Our Trainers will guide you on how to build a loving, trusting relationship with your puppy - key for a service dog, how to socialize the puppy to new places and experiences, by outings several times a week, and how to the pup. There's more information on our website, putnamservicedogs.org, and the application is on the Home Page under Applications. Or call 917-449-5359.
https://www.putnamservicedogs.org/puppy-raiser-application/