Local non-profit training therapy dogs for the community
Helping someone is usually a process involving two hands and two feet, but a local business is adding four paws to the mix. Anything is Pawsable (AIP) is a non-profit organization located at 1216 Indiana Avenue in St. Marys, which is co-located with K9to5 Doggy Daycare, and whose purpose is to train therapy and service dogs at no cost to those who are in need of a working dog.
“We’ve been going since March of 2020, and got our first dogs a month before COVID hit,’ said Store Manager Jessica Skaggs.
The idea came from discussions between Skaggs, Assistant Manager Mackenzie Vorhees, and two others.
“We discussed wanting to give back to the community in some way, shape, or form,” said Skaggs. Skaggs said that a fully vested and trained service dog can cost upwards of $40,000.
“We started advertising for it, and were seeing a need in the community, especially for therapy dogs in various facilities,” said Skaggs. Currently the animals they’ve trained are being used locally, and at other locations in the state.
“Samoa is in Bellefontaine at a middle school in an at risk community, Boston is with the Mercer County ESC, Annie is with the Mercer County Juvenile Court, Rusty is training for Coldwater Schools, and Woody is at Shelby Hills Preschool, and we have several other dogs in training,” explained Vorhees.
The process to get one of their dogs starts at their website.
“There is an application on our website, AnythingIsPawsable. org. They can turn it in via e-mail, or bring it into the facility. We then decided if they qualify for the program or not,” said Skaggs. One limiting factor is the number of dogs
they can keep and train at one time. “Right now our capacity is seven to nine dogs. That is high capacity. We hired a third trainer for AIP so we can meet the demand.”
As for the dogs, Skaggs said its can be a mix of how the dogs are selected.
“Some bring their own dogs. We temperament test them to see if they’ll work for their needs,” said Skaggs before continuing. “We also breed dogs. Rusty came from two dogs we own at the facility. Out of his litter, two were picked for AIP.”
Skaggs said that her training in order to be able to train the dogs, involved her going through CircleTail out of Cincinnati.
“It was a one year apprenticeship. I have an apprenticeship certification, and nothing else is need for me to train what I do which is therapy and service dogs,” said Skaggs.
While every dog they train was selected, not all of them make it to the end of training.
“We’ve had two that failed as service and working dogs,” said Skaggs. Vorhees explained that she washed out the two dogs.
“I washed them out because not every dog is cut out to be a service dog, which is why we highly suggest letting us pick the dog,” said Vorhees. The organization has a type of dog they prefer as well.
“We pick doodles and poodles because of their low to no shedding, if they’re out in public. We also like standard poodles,” said Skaggs.
For the future, the organization is hoping to grow, and they’ve started accepting sponsorships.
“We’re just getting started on sponsors for AIP. A business can pay $2,500, or $3,000, and it pays for the training, tools needed, food, and vetting for the puppy,” said Skaggs. She said that recently one of their dogs has become sponsored who will be a therapy dog for Mercer Health, and another will be sponsored soon as well.
“If we could get a lot more trainers, we’d love that,” said Vorhees.
“I’d like to see us have more foster homes so that our puppies could spend a few hours with us, then spend time in a home environment, to learn the home environment,” said Skaggs.