- By Ashley Perham Main Street Nashville
- Sep 27, 2022 Updated Sep 28, 2022
Kathy Taylor's hearing dog Spain alerts her of alarms, notifications and even her name.
Spain demonstrates alerting her owner, Kathy Taylor.
Louie is a service dog in training being raised by Callan Morrison.
Louie and his volunteer puppy raiser Callan Morrison
Callan Morrison and Louie (second from left), Kathy Taylor and Spain (third from left) and other service dog handlers visit an Amazon warehouse in Middle Tennessee.
Tornado sirens. Alarm clocks. Doorbells. Even her name.
Kathy Taylor's service dog Spain notifies her of them all.
Taylor uses cochlear implants to help overcome her loss of hearing. With a nudge to her hand or leg, Spain makes sure her owner never misses anything — alerting her if she gets a text or drops her credit card.
Taylor, who lives in Lebanon, said she thanks Spain every time and gives her some kibble.
Spain, a 9-year-old Labrador and golden retriever mix, is Taylor's second service dog. Taylor got Spain in 2016 after retiring Miss Janet, her first dog.
Taylor traveled all over the country with her dogs and said she always felt safe, even taking them on planes.
"I knew she'd get me up in the morning," she said.
Canine Companions
Both dogs were from Canine Companions for Independence, a California-based organization that provides service dogs free of charge to those who need them.
September marks National Service Dog Month. A service dog is a dog trained to help an individual with a specific task.
Canine Companions trains service dogs for adults and children with physical disabilities. It also trains dogs who work with professionals in a visitation, education or health care setting.
The dogs can retrieve and deliver dropped items, open doors and drawers, turn lights on and off and dozens of other tasks.
Canine Companions doesn't train dogs for guide work for the blind, seizure or diabetic alerts or mobility assistance.
A few years ago, Canine Companions started training dogs that can help veterans with PTSD. The dogs can do tasks like interrupting nightmares and creating boundaries in crowded spaces.
According to its website, Canine Companions places 325 to 375 service dogs a year. The website says the organization has placed 7,100 dogs since its founding in 1975.
Training program
The life of a Canine Companions service dog starts in California, where they are bred. Seventy percent of the dogs are like Spain -- a mix between Labrador and golden retriever, Taylor said. Fifteen percent are pure Labrador retrievers, and 15% are pure golden retrievers.
When a puppy is two months old, it is given to a volunteer puppy raiser. These volunteers live around the country and keep the puppies for 14-16 months.
Callan Morrison is a puppy raiser in Nashville. Her family has been raising puppies since she was 9 years old.
Morrison raised two in college and then took a break. Louie, a 14-month-old Labrador and golden retriever mix, is her first pup since then.
Canine Companions asks volunteers to take the puppies as many places as possible to get them acclimated to different environments. They also give them 45 tasks to teach.
One of the hardest parts of raising a service dog is knowing you have to give it up. Morrison's parents did a good job of preparing her and her siblings, she said.
They would have an imaginary person in mind the dog would go to, and as they trained the dog, they would say "Oh, they may need it to do this command."
Morrison has three favorite parts of the puppy-raising process.
First, she enjoys learning each dog's training style and adapting to it. Louie, for example, is very food motivated.
She also likes educating the public about service dogs. She sometimes lets kids help teach Louie a skill and gives them a Canine Companions brochure.
She said she also enjoys seeing the impact the service dogs have on the people they go to. She gets periodic updates on what her dogs are doing now with their owners.
Puppy raisers like Morrison don't know exactly what the dogs are going to do. The specialized training is the job of professional Canine Companions trainers, who evaluate the dogs' strengths and weaknesses and teach them specialized tasks for six to nine months.
If a dog completes professional training, it can be matched with an owner. Applicants, who have already gone through a rigorous process, are called and spend two weeks doing Team Training.
Service dogs develop ‘I’m working now’ attitude to support owners with disability - Main Street Media of Tennessee
Tornado sirens. Alarm clocks. Doorbells. Even her name.Kathy Taylor’s service dog, Spain, notifies her of all of those sounds.Taylor uses cochlear implants to help overcome her loss of hearing. With a nudge to her hand or leg, Spain makes sure her owner never misses anything — alerting her if...
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