We train free service dogs for people with physical disabilities other than blindness, focusing specifically on mobility assistance and hearing alert dogs. We also provide free dogs to veterans – service, including PTSD, or emotional support dogs.
Training a service dog is like training an Olympic Athlete – hundreds of hours of training, and few can actually hit the required level of performance. We carefully select the dogs we train. Still, not all graduate.
How long will you wait? We’re limited in our producing service dogs by our resources – donations, great dogs, and volunteer puppy raisers. The demand for our types of service dog is huge, and continues to grow each year.
Who we match with one of our dogs depends on the needs of the applicant, their home situation, and their ability to care for the dog. After we’ve matched them, the dog meets the mtched applicants. We look for immediate chemistry – the dog happily walking next to the person, matching their speed and gait, loose leash and checking in with them. A happy, loving dog will work harder for their person – ex. get up from a nap to retrieve a dropped item. If the dog doesn’t find their person in the first round of potential matches, we match again until we see the Chemistry we’re looking for. Our dog makes the ultimate decision.
We train carefully selected, mixed breed pups from rescue groups as our service dogs.
Each dog is uniquely trained to perform tasks to assist their matched recipient. Our service dogs will walk next to their person on a loose leash – no pulling or lunging, assist their person in going up and down stairs, assist their person to restabilize their balance, retrieve a dropped item, fetch items, open drawers, doors – whatever their person requires.
If you require a hypoallergenic diabetic, psychiatric, or seizure alert service dog, or an emotional support dog, please contact us at info@putnamservicedogs.org. We’ll recommend other sources for you to find your dog.
We seek applicants who will benefit from a mobility assistance dog or hearing alert dog, and who can competently and humanely care for a dog,
Currently, the wait for our Service Dogs is about 2 years, depending on your home situation, needs, and the capabilities and temperament of our pups graduating.
We need volunteer puppy raisers and vacation fosterers to produce our Service Dogs! Please ask your friends to apply.
To apply, please complete the following application. All required fields * must be completed for the form to submit.
Please note that applying does not guarantee you will receive a service dog.
Any misrepresentation(s) on the application will result in disqualification of the application