Canine Companions: Volunteers raising free service dogs for people with disabilities

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A woman in Brunswick County is raising awareness about raising puppies to become service dogs for people with disabilities.

Canine Companions works to give people with disabilities a service dog free of charge, but the organizations needs volunteers and puppy raisers to make that possible.

Canine Companions serves adults and children with physical, cognitive or auditory disabilities, veterans with a physical or auditory disability or post-traumatic stress disorder, and professionals working in a health care, visitation, criminal justice or education setting.

Nicole Palumbo’s family lives in Concord. Her 12-year-old son, Nico, has autism.

“The world is not really built for people and kids that have different needs as far as like sensory needs,” Nicole Palumbo said.

Before getting a service dog, just going to the grocery store was difficult for Nico.

“It may be like the squeaky wheels on a cart and the sound of the music over the loud system and the announcements over the loud system and all those Things that we don’t even notice. He notices all of them.”

Service dogs, like Jane, notice Nico.

“One day, we were in a home improvement store, and someone was there with a service dog. And the dog recognized that he was having a hard time,” Palumbo said. “And we were just like, light bulb moment, oh my gosh, like, this was a sign right in front of us.”

That sign led them to Canine Companions, an organization with a mission to provide service dogs free of charge to people with disabilities. The only way they can do that is with people like Lisa Dare. She is a puppy raiser in Brunswick County.

“We do the foundation work,” Dare said. “They learn probably about 30 skills with us.”

She just started the foundation with Yuri at 8-weeks-old.

“He’s just getting settled with us, learning to be in a new environment, a new home, starting to get into a normal routine,” Dare said. We are potty training, all that fun stuff, he’s eating in his X-pen, learning to have downtime in his X-pen, learning how to get along with his surroundings.”

The puppies stay with the puppy raisers for 18 months. Then, Dare said they go to a professional training center. Canine companions has six of these facilities across the country.

“That’s where they will learn the more tactical work in terms of doing their job,” Dare said.

If they pass that training, the pup and the puppy raiser go to graduation and get to meet the recipient of the dog.

“Our mantra with the organization is that people come for the puppies but they stay for the people,” Dare said.

Dare said that moment at graduation is life changing for the puppies and the people.

“To hear the enthusiasm.. you know thank you for being a puppy raiser. Thank you for giving your time. Those kinds of things. He’s so important in my life. He gives me so much independence,” Dare said.

Sometimes, it takes a village of puppy raisers on a mission to raise canines like jane  to be more than just a companion.

“So the more that we can get the word out about how we can have people that can be a part of this mission and change lives by raising a puppy, it’ll make it a lot better.”

Canine Companions always needs more puppy raisers and volunteers to continue being able to provide these service dogs to people with disabilities for free. Palumbo wants everyone to know just how much the puppy raisers have impacted their lives.

“like I said, as simple as running to the grocery store or getting blood work done, going on a vacation, she has made that possible for a family like us,” Palumbo said. “This gift of a service dog to our family has been really life-changing. Like I said, not only for Nico, but for our whole family.”

Dare said those are the thing that make her want to raise a puppy over and over and over again.

Dare said there are many ways people can help not even just be puppy raisers. There is a program within Canine Companions where you can foster, so you can help a puppy raiser. Dare said you can help babysit. You can help take the puppy for a short period of time. You can share that responsibility with a puppy raiser, So you don’t have to feel the pressure of having him or her for that full 18 months.

Dare said there are almost 30 puppy raisers in the Carolinas.  She said a lot of them are in the Charlotte and Raleigh area, but they are building a bigger community in the coastal area. She said it’s called the Coastal Group, which is Wilmington down into South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia.

Since 1975, Canine Companions has placed more than 8,000 service dogs with families across the country allowing them to live their lives with much more independence.

Click here to find out how you can help or how to apply for a service dog.