By Sharon L. Peters Special for USA TODAY
Ollie may not have impeccable breeding, but he’s talented and hardworking.
The extremely high-intensity border collie mix – the kind of over-the-top dog that people regularly dump – was abandoned. He lucked into a good situation at a nearby sanctuary and is now well on the way to becoming a Colorado-based certified disaster-search dog.
“He’s doing as well as, if not better than,” the other young dogs in training, Jennifer Ambrosio says. She adopted the mutt in July in hopes of getting him search-certified.
Ollie is specializing in urban disaster searches, which means he could be called upon to hunt for people after earthquakes, hurricanes, explosions or any other disaster that hits a city.
He trains twice a month with a bevy of mostly purebreds – primarily Labradors, German shepherds, border collies and golden retrievers – aiming for official FEMA papers.
“Everyone thinks he’s amazing,” says Ambrosio, a Fort Collins veterinary tech and canine search specialist in training. “He’s got a lot of natural ability.”
From unmanageable mutt to working dog
Ollie was saved from homelessness through a program initiated this year by Sherry Woodard, an animal behavior expert at Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah. She has helped hundreds of dogs move past the behavior problems that landed them in shelters.
Woodard had long wondered if a certain cluster of canines – those that were so driven, so high-energy that owners couldn’t cope – might be candidates for working-dog jobs. She figured that someday she’d try to develop ways to give some of those dogs a chance to have a loving home and a job.
Ollie forced her hand. When he was abandoned with a note saying he was wonderful and loving but required too much exercise and attention, Woodard decided it was a sign.
She spent time with a search-and-rescue handler in Colorado, learned about the traits that indicate a dog is a good candidate, and linked up with a New Jersey veterinarian who has been working with search and service canines for years. Ollie was with her every step of the way. “He was an amazing teacher and student,” Woodard says.
Her program at Best Friends is among a handful across the country that are rescuing “throwaways” and turning them into search or service dogs. Among them is Freedom Service Dogs, a non-profit in Englewood, Colo., which places about 20 service dogs a year – all rescued or donated – with people with disabilities. And the Search Dog Foundation in Ojai, Calif., has since 1996 trained dozens of firefighters or other first responders for disaster search work, partnered with carefully cultivated rescued dogs.
The groups have discovered that, although specific traits are required, many shelter dogs have them. In fairly short order, Woodard identified two mutts in addition to Ollie that seemed ideally suited to search work (a shepherd mix and a Lab mix), provided early obedience training and socialization, and has now placed each with search professionals who are putting the dogs through formal training and aiming for certification.
Woodard is working with her fourth, Peter Max, known as Petey, a pup of unknown heritage, and has put together a list of others she’ll take home to train one at a time.
She believes that in 10 years she’ll have placed as many as 100 homeless dogs with people who understand their intensity and will channel that into jobs that help humans. But her dreams are bigger than that.
“I’m hoping this won’t be just a little in-house program here in Kanab,” she says.
Saving the dogs who will then save people
Thousands of shelter dogs are labeled unadoptable and are euthanized because they’re too high-energy for the normal household, and Woodard wants to help “teach shelters and rescuers how to identify the ones that are candidates for this kind of work, thereby saving lives.”
Some search or service trainers will never embrace dogs with questionable parentage and unknown pasts, preferring purebreds from bloodlines that have proven dependable for this work.
Ollie’s owner understands that. But Ambrosio is delighted with her rescued mutt, who has shown “even more potential than we’d hoped.” Now that he’s getting frequent doses of daily stimulation, Ollie has become a well-behaved member of the household. He’s even reasonably polite to the cats.
But she knows he’s at his most joyful when he’s engaged in a simulated search job or other bone-wearying task, and she’s pretty sure he’ll blaze through certification and embark soon on a long, happy career with her.
