Barks echo and happy panting fills the room as the door swings open. From service dogs to therapy dogs, they’re ready to help the community.
Uplifting Paws is a nonprofit organization in Lincoln that strives to improve the lives of others through man’s best friend by providing highly trained service dogs and therapy dogs for people with health conditions and impairments.
“It’s making a difference for not just people who are receiving service dogs and having their lives improved by being able to be more independent, but it’s also something where we’re helping the community as a whole,” Liz Higley, the executive director of Uplifting Paws, said.
Uplifting Paws opened in 2017 after Higley was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and was looking for a service dog for herself.
Higley realized there needed to be more community support for training service dogs. Since no one else was doing it, she decided to put her interest into training her own dog to start a business.
“There wasn’t a lot of support in our area at all for psychiatric service dogs,” Higley said. “The majority of the support that was there was for veterans, specifically, it wasn’t for people who had PTSD from outside of combat situations.”
Uplifting Paws has a program for service dogs and a program for therapy dogs. Service dogs are trained from start to finish, then they are placed with prospective clients. Uplifting Paws also provides support for training personal dogs as service dogs.
Therapy dogs are usually owned by volunteers who want to help the community. Therapy dog teams are sent to places across the community, like the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, nursing homes, Lincoln Public Schools and more.
“I think it’s really important to have that emotional welfare support for…people who don’t have access to dogs,” Higley said. “College students are impacted by therapy dog students (that) come to campus because they just miss their dog at home, they have a super stressful test (or) they just need a way to relax. Being able to pet a dog even for a few minutes helps them destress.”
Uplifting Paws tries to visit campus at least twice a semester with a group of therapy dogs for students to interact with. Students can volunteer with Uplifting Paws to interact with the dogs by helping take care of them.
Uplifting Paws currently doesn’t have a location for the public to visit therapy dogs, however, it’s a possibility in the future.
“I would really, really, really, really recommend people to volunteer,” Tasya Whirl, a kennel staff member, said. “It is so much fun. Anyone would love it if they love playing with dogs.”
Whirl works with the dogs making sure they have a safe and fun environment. She has been with Uplifting Paws since March 2022.
“I love the message that Uplifting Paws has, and ever since I first worked here, I have loved it, and everything we do is like, what I want to do,” Whirl said.
Uplifting Paws is always accepting volunteers and donations. To volunteer with Uplifting Paws, reach out to Higley at liz@upliftingpaws.org.
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