Service Dog Training and Fire Trucks

Malcolm Callister | Sep 21, 2016

K4Paws provides trained service dogs for Frontenac and eastern Ontario. The region covered stretches from Trenton to Ottawa and east to the Quebec border. K4Paws was established in 2013 to meet the growing need for a local service dog training organization specifically for non-visible medically diagnosed disabilities.

I talked with Samantha Knapp, service dog trainer and director for the non-profit organisation, K4Paws, in Kingston. www.k4paws.ca. Samantha has 14 years of dog training experience, and two daughters with trained service dogs. She was instrumental in the establishment of K4Paws, which provides trained service dogs for: Autism, Mental health, PTSD, Mobility issues and Seizures. K4Paws follows the guidelines from Assistance Dogs International (ADI), for education and training of staff, dogs and handlers together.

K4Paws currently owns 33 dogs either in training or with an approved placement partner, and the number dogs is growing slowly. There is no fast track on training. Each trained dog is valued at $20,000 to $25,000. The dogs are placed with volunteer foster homes for the first 18 to 24 months for basic obedience training and specific medical response training. After this training the dogs are teamed up with an identified partner to form a service dog team. Service team training takes place to ensure that the partner knows the do’s and don’ts of service dog handling.

Application to have a dog placed with you requires medical and social references together with interviews and background checks, and not every applicant gets a dog placed with them. Samantha stated, “This can be a very difficult decision for us.”

The K4Paws always owns the dogs they train and their monitor their wellbeing and ongoing need as service dogs. The placement partner is expected to actively be part of a fund-raising program and to cover all vet and feeding bills.

The Kingston City council have come alongside K4Paws with local recognition and the use of public facilities for service dog training. “Fire Stations, Police stations, hospitals and schools have all been very cooperative.” says Samantha.

I was invited to attend a K4Paws dog training class for dogs aged 3 months to 20 months at a fire station. The objective was to expose the dog to distracting sights and sounds to train them to remain under control and show no adverse reactions.

Twelve service dog foster families and their dogs arrived at the fire station, where the duty fire crew consisting of Jeff Oljejnik, Bob Chan, Ryan Vivian and Brad Dowdwell, obligingly put the fire tender through a series of slamming of metal doors, bells, whistles and of course the air horn while running the big diesel.

The dogs, for their part, had to walk around and follow all the normal commands without showing any signs of distraction with the sudden noises.

Then, with the dogs and their adult foster handlers in a half circle in front of the open fire hall door, Ryan Vivian came out in his fire retardant suit and respirator looking like an alien apparition. He had dog treats, but only for the dogs that did not back away from this scary phantom. Most dogs responded well.