June Volunteer of the Month

Congratulations to Maria and Rob Hersey on being our June Volunteers of the Month! Read their story below about how they became puppy sitters. Thank you, Rob and Maria, for helping dogs change lives! 

Guest post by Maria Hersey, volunteer with Susquehanna Service Dogs

Rob and I began volunteering as puppy sitters in May 2016. Fortunately, I keep notes on all the dogs we sit for and realized that within that time, we have had the honor and pleasure of sitting for forty-three dogs. Ten of those dogs have stayed with us multiple times: Andie Joy, Wes, Dustin, Chickadee, Jackie, Cassiopeia, Prague, Cha Cha , Nellie, and Sergeant. 

Initially, we began sitting on weekends for dogs in Advanced Training. As the years progressed, we began to care for dogs requiring a longer sitting period due to unique situations or breeding schedules. When you spend many weeks caring for a dog, you have the satisfaction of developing a relationship with them and that arrangement is beneficial, not only for the dog but also for both us. Some of the circumstances which resulted in long-term sitting involved discharged dogs awaiting a final disposition, dogs with upcoming adoptions, a dog needing to lose weight, and breeding dogs who need a home situation prior to mating.

Time and again, we are asked “How can you give up these dogs?” Our answer: “There is always another wonderful dog needing us to sit so we rarely feel sad.” There is such variety to our assignments. We have sat for one or two days or up to six weeks. It just depends on SSD’s needs and what is going on with our schedule.

Admittedly, we hold a special place in our hearts for dogs who spend an extended period of time with us:  Bailey (a sweetheart), Andie Joy (happy girl), Jackie (what a scamp), Cha Cha (full of energy), Mikey (a teddy bear), and Sergeant (incredible athlete). We were sad when they left but as we said, there is always another special puppy ready to join us for a new adventure.

Five years ago, we lost our beloved Annabelle, a rescued black lab/golden mix.  Since we are retired and in our 70s, we did not want to take on the responsibility of rescuing another dog. Nor did we want to burden our children should we not be able to care for a dog. However, throughout 51 years of marriage we have always had a rescue and now we felt lost without a canine companion. We also enjoy an active lifestyle of walking and hiking and both activities are so much more much fun when we can share them with a dog.

Sitting for SSD was the perfect situation for our current lifestyle. We have our freedom but also have ample opportunities to get our “doggie fix.” Also what is not to like about SSD dogs! They are well-bred, beautifully behaved, and can accompany us to all the places we like to visit. Our dogs join us in daily exercise classes, join us while we volunteer at the public library and go on daily visits to the Mohler Senior Center. It is such a pleasure to walk into these places, especially with a SSD dog, because we are greeted with such delight and joy by all.  At the senior center, Rob and I discovered that our “supposed” popularity is in direction proportion to the dogs we share with the members.

We have truly enjoyed working with the staff and other volunteers at SSD. This is a community of devoted dog lovers who are so dedicated to the mission of sharing these beautiful animals with those in need. No matter what your age or who you are, if you are involved with caring for SSD dogs you are completely accepted as part of this greater service dog family. 

A Warm Welcome Led to 12 Years as a Volunteer

Guest post by Karen (KJ) Johnston

After 12 years of volunteering with SSD, I have many happy memories of times there with Nancy. After her happy greeting on my first volunteer day when I knocked on her house door—“Oh, you came! Come with me and I’ll show you the kennel!”—to thousands of hours spent at PawsAbilities planning and weekends.

When I worked as Event Coordinator in 2007, I always appreciated the trust she showed me by placing me in charge in her absence and sending me in her place to Keystone Human Services Children and Family Services managers’ meetings.

One of my favorite days with Nancy was at the first Clicker Expo I went to with SSD in Rhode Island when we took a walk after the sessions. I enjoyed walking along the ocean cliff trail with Nancy and SSD Gideon and hearing her ideas to make SSD better. Those plans sure have come true! Nancy has a wonderful vision to train dogs to help people, and I’m glad I found Susquehanna Service Dogs and had 12 years to work with Nancy to move her dream forward. I believe my time at SSD helped to make me a better person and has helped me through a number of personal trials. So a great big “Thank you!” to Nancy for welcoming me to SSD! I have enjoyed the journey!

KJ has been an SSD volunteer for 12 years and was Event Coordinator in 2007. She lives in Liverpool, PA with her husband Tom and their labs—SSD Celia, Meto (SSD Hazel from the Tree litter), Mayhem, and Morel. She found SSD in 2002 when she wanted to learn how to train her next lab, Mabel, to be a therapy dog. She has enjoyed doing any time of work for SSD from puppy raising and sitting, whelping the Tree litter, fundraising, or any work job.

Memories from a 19-Year SSD Volunteer

Guest post by Candi Trogner

It is hard to imagine that I have been a volunteer for SSD for 19 years. It is even harder to imagine Nancy is retiring! To me, SSD is Nancy. I remember her telling me about Zach, her wonderful Lab, and his obedience training. He did very well and she felt he could be trained to do so much more. The rest is history, as they say, and the vision of SSD was born.

I volunteered up at the kennel one day a week. It was hard for me. I did not know what I was doing and did not like some of the training techniques.  It didn’t matter because Nancy was happy to see me and she was patient and encouraging. When I could not quite put the process together with the end result of a trained service dog, she invited me to attend Team Training. It was a wonderful experience and a turning point, as I became committed to SSD and their mission. But there were also fun times—chipping dog poop out of ice in the dog runs, being chased back into the training room by wild turkeys, and taking the dogs for a walk in the forest because Nancy said the sounds and smells expanded their minds. I am lucky to have lots of great memories.

I wish Nancy and Robert a wonderful retirement in Boulder, CO with two of their children and their grandchildren.  What could be better?! She has prepared us all as we go into the future, but she will be missed.

Candi Trogner is a volunteer public trainer and does demonstrations with her dog, SSD Ajax. She is the mother of two sons and Gramme to four grandchildren. She lives with her husband and Ajax in the Harrisburg area.

Investing in the Future

Over the years, we have grown tremendously. What started in 1993 with a small group of volunteers has grown to a large network of staff and volunteers working together to raise and train service dogs for people with disabilities. Now we are looking toward the future and developing a plan to continue growing and improving our program so we can change even more lives with the assistance of our dogs.

As many of you know, we have a breeding program here at SSD (please see our post Why Do We Breed Service Dogs? for our reasoning behind this choice). Recently, we hired breeding consultant Marina Hall Phillips to help us evaluate our breeding program and examine other areas of our entire program so we can make sure we’re doing the best we can to provide successful service dogs for men, women, and children with disabilities. Marina has worked with Canine Companions for Independence and Guide Dogs for the Blind, and she has many years of experience with service dog breeding programs. We have every confidence that she’ll help us make successful changes!

Last night, a group of our volunteers met with Marina to discuss their volunteer experiences with SSD and the breeding program, as well as our program’s overall strengths and weaknesses. In true SSD fashion, we followed this discussion with a potluck dinner. While our volunteers were talking with Marina, our staff made sure all the food was cooked or heated.

From the honest discussion our volunteers had with Marina, we hope to improve not only our breeding program, but our entire program.

We have a small staff, so we rely on our volunteers to do a lot. When we tell our volunteers that we couldn’t do it without them, we truly mean it! Our volunteers raise puppies, help us train our advanced training dogs in public, whelp litters, care for our breeding dogs, puppy sit, do therapy visits with children with autism, give demonstrations, do home visits for potential partners and puppy raisers, help with Meet the Dogs and Team Training—the list goes on and on.

As we develop our plan for the future, we imagine that many of the improvements will result in an improved volunteer experience. All improvements mean that we will be able to provide higher quality service dogs that are well-suited to working with their partners. And that means that means that more lives will be changed.

If you’re interested in joining Susquehanna Service Dogs as a volunteer, please apply online. We would love to have you join us!

The Kennel Sparkles!

It may have been a dreary weekend, but the kennel is sparkling! Thanks to a group of wonderful volunteers, we cleaned everything at the kennel during our annual work weekend.

Twenty volunteers on Saturday and 17 volunteers on Sunday helped us to:

• clean the windows and doors inside and outside the kennel
• clean the kennel from top to bottom
• patch up any rusty areas inside the kennel
• clean and paint the training room
• replace smoke detectors in the kennel and house
• repair the kennel's phone line
• replace the counter-balance mechanism in one of the kennel doors
• remove dead trees
• replace 1,200 feet of fencing in the field where the dogs run

We got everything done on our to-do list except removing the rust from the crates and the outside runs and painting the crates. The only that stopped us from finishing these tasks was the weather. The rain finally put a halt to our cleaning.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped us this weekend! You did a fantastic job!

We know that you worked hard this weekend, but we have one more thing to ask of you and everyone else. Don't worry - it's much easier than putting up a fence. SSD Midge is going to the vet tomorrow for an ultrasound to see if she's going to have puppies, and we need you to keep your fingers crossed. Here's hoping for puppies!