Puppy Raising
Do you have a passion to help members of your community?
Do you love dogs and believe in the joy they can bring to
someone's life? Join our puppy raising team! We are always
happy to welcome new members to our puppy raiser groups!
Depending on the amount of time you can commit towards raising a puppy, we have two different options for our potential puppy raisers. You can either become a Full-Time Puppy Raiser or a Weekend Wagger! Below, you will see brief descriptions for both of these wonderful opportunities.
Become a Full-Time Puppy Raiser!
A puppy raiser is the first and very important step toward placing a working dog with their human. From the time a puppy goes to live with a puppy raiser at either 8-10 weeks of age until it returns to advanced training at about 9 months of age, the puppy raiser is a part of the wonderful process of placing a graduate dog with a human partner.
As a puppy raiser, you'll be helping by:
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Familiarizing the puppy to sights and sounds that they may come across every day during their working life
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Teaching basic cues, such as: come, sit, down, stay, etc
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Caring for the puppy in a home environment
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Attending regular puppy training classes
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Bringing your puppy around town with you
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Spreading your love and knowledge of service dogs to the public
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...and much more!
If you want to become a puppy raiser with Brigadoon Service dogs, we encourage you to read the Puppy Raiser Guidelines above so that you can learn the specifics of becoming a part of our Puppy Raiser team.
Become a Weekend Wagger!
Our Weekend Wagger program works with our volunteers who love our puppies, but just don't have the time to devote their full attention as a puppy raiser.
Our puppies at the facility can always benefit from new socialization experiences during the weekend through their Weekend Wagger trips. The Weekend Wagger program is much like our puppy raiser program, except our Weekend Wagger puppy visits for only the weekend (or even a day during the week).
Given the impact that Weekend Waggers will have on our puppies, these volunteers are required to go through the same application process as puppy-raisers. This includes attending puppy classes and having a personal interview. We hold our Weekend Waggers to the same standards as our puppy raisers, since consistency is very important at every step of a puppy's life.
If you are interested in becoming a Weekend Wagger, please review the puppy raiser guidelines above and fill out the application below.
