I recently asked a young lady in Grade 4 what she would like to do when she grew up. “I’m going to work with animals,” she said confidently. “What will you do?” I asked. To which she replied, clearly unimpressed with my comprehension or possibly lack of hearing: “WORK WITH ANIMALS!”. I wasn’t about to tell her that there are a gazillion different jobs that involve this, so I changed the subject. However, it did get me thinking about the number of different jobs that a person can do with animals and more specifically with dogs, both on a volunteer and a professional basis. With that in mind, I set out to learn from a few people in the field of Jobs with Dogs just what was involved. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing some of their thoughts on this page.
Mel Foat- Chairman of Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides (volunteer)
If you have lived in Chestermere for any length of time, you will I am sure, be familiar with Councillor Mel Foat and his seeing-eye guide dog. But Mel hasn’t always had a guide dog and hasn’t always been blind; for many years he was a farmer until 2013 when his life took a drastic turn and he lost most of his sight. It was while he was learning to carve out a new life for himself that Mel was introduced to Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides (LFCDG )
I met with Mel and asked him about his experience and how it gone from being overwhelming and a real challenge physically and emotionally to where he is now. He was quick to tell me that despite having a disability, with the support of his first service dog, Walker he was able to get about the community with confidence. I asked Mel about his first experience at the Dog Guides training centre in 2014.
“They didn’t give us the dogs when we first got there. They held off for three days, just to tempt us. Then they brought two dogs in at a time and just let them run around the room and smell and check things out, like dogs do. All of a sudden, the dogs decided to settle down and one of them went and sat down in the middle of the room and the other one came over and sat right by my feet. And they said, ‘it looks like Mel has chosen his dog and I said ‘I didn’t choose him, he chose me: it was Walker!”
Now Walker is retired he has become the family pet, and his successor Warden has come to live with Mel.
LF of C Dog Guides impressed Mel so much that he decided to get involved with the organization. He is currently the Chairman of the group based in Oakville, Ontario with a role that involves planning for the future and collaboration with other Service Dog organizations, like BC and Alberta Guides Dogs BC and Alberta Guide Dogs and Dogs with Wings https://dogswithwings.ca. LF of C DG is the largest school of it’s kind in Canada, breeding and training dogs since 1985 when it became the Canine Vision Centre. Since then other programs have been introduced to include hearing, seizure response, autism assistance, diabetic alert, PTSD and facility support. Each Dog Guide is $35,000 to train and place and at no cost to a client. There is no government support, so donations and support from volunteers are vital to the ongoing success. Corporate donations, sponsored dog walks, an online gift shop and program sponsorship help. Another way that volunteers can help is by fostering the dogs as they prepare for intensive training. Puppies live with their fosters for up to 16 months and foster families train the puppies on basic obedience skills and socialization. All vet, food and training expenses are covered by LFCDG. Currently, the foster families must live within a maximum of 75 minutes from our Oakville or Breslau (Kitchener-Waterloo / Guelph area) training facilities but Mel would like to see another training facility opening in Western Canada. More details with guidelines about how to get involved are on the website: https://www.dogguides.com
Mel spends some of his time visiting schools and groups, educating them about the role of a service dog. The biggest point he tries to get across to members of the public, is that it’s definitely not okay to interact with a service dog at any time it’s working for the person with disability. When wearing a Guide Dog harness the service dog needs to have total focus on it’s handler.
With a chuckle, Mel gave me a parting quote: “You touch my dog, I touch you!”
