Dog lovers from all over campus met near Davis Field on Tuesday to pet a service puppy from Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services (PAALS), the service dog training organization. The organization is located in Columbia and has been training service dogs for nine years.
At PAALS, service dogs are trained specifically for many different owners, according to animal care coordinator Mary Clair.
“They (service dogs) are trained to help veterans with PTSD, children with autism and individuals with mobility problems, such as people who are in a wheel chair or amputees,” Clair said.
These dogs are trained to do various tasks, such as turning lights on and off, opening doors, picking up dropped items and signaling for help to assist individuals in wheelchairs.
In owners with PTSD, the dogs are able to sense when their owners are feeling overwhelmed. When this happens, the canines are trained to pinpoint pressure points, placing their body weight on those points to relieve the owner’s stress. The labradors there were happy to be petted and loved on by students, but according to their training, they are expected to keep focus on the person holding their leash at all times. This training takes diligence, time and many outings in public — much like the one displayed at Davis Field.
“We come here once a month,” Clair said, “but they go out to train at least twice a week.”
The trainers, or animal care coordinators, often bring the dogs out to public places such as Davis Field to teach the dogs how to handle social interaction.
“We go all over the place,” Clair said. “We go to pet stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, the state fair, parks. We try to expose them to as much as we can before we place them so we know how they’re going to react in every situation.”
Although the dogs at Davis Field were not newborn puppies, the training dogs at PAALS do start their training early.
“We get them usually around eight weeks at the latest. Some of them are born with us, and we work with them until they’re 3 years old,” Clair said when asked about the age of the puppies.
Many students and passersby stopped in excitement when they saw the training dogs. For many, seeing the dogs brought back memories of their own pets back home.
“I grew up with dogs my entire life. I had a shepherd, and now I have a shih tzu poodle. I love dogs in general so I came here,” Kevin Harper, first-year cardiovascular technology student, said about the petting session.
For others, playing with the pooches was just a good time to relax and forget about responsibilities for a little while.
“It gave me a time to relieve my stress from studying all the time,” Jonathan Grimm, first-year mechanical engineering student, said. “Dogs are man’s best friend.”