PART-TIME DOGS

Local group seeks weekend foster families

On Saturday morning, Cadillac wakes up ready to play. As soon as he leaves his kennel, he rolls around on the floor, and once in the backyard, he starts racing around.

“I think that’s my favorite part,” Diego Montesinos said. “He comes out just bursting with energy.”

Diego and his mother, Angie Montesinos, have been serving as a weekend foster family for Cadillac, a former shelter dog from the Houston SPCA. Cadillac is in training with Service Dogs Inc., a nonprofit founded in 1988 and located in Dripping Springs for the last 21 years.

“Not only do they train dogs to be service dogs for people that are in need of that, they also adopt all of these dogs from shelters which is just amazing,” Angie said.

Cadillac will be a courthouse facility dog for the Kendall County District Attorney, providing support to children who have to testify about traumatic events. He is currently in training for 40 hours per week, but when he goes home with the Montesinos on the weekends, he’s off the clock.

“I think it’s special and important for them to have a weekend getaway,” Angie said. “They’re very busy during the week training and it gives them the opportunity to have some R and R time.”

Diego said fostering dogs started out as a way to get service hours for school.

“This place just seemed really cool,” Diego said. “It’s super rewarding to get to work with dogs and have fun with them, of course, but then also watch them grow and develop and become service dogs.”

Now, the family has been volunteering with Service Dogs Inc. for two years. They have worked with quite a few dogs at this point, like Ivy, Porsche, Royce, Mustang, Camaro and Cadillac.

“I remember Porsche was just super high energy. She was definitely a dog that needed a lot of outside time,” Diego said. “Then we had other dogs like Ivy that were just super laid back. Every dog that we foster is definitely different and has their own personality.”

Foster families like the Montesinos also fill out behavioral reports, so the training team has additional information.

“We’re able to observe their behavior in the home, which is a very important part of their training,” Angie said. “We do reinforce some of the training that they learn, and then identify behaviors that they need to improve on.”

The Montesinos have fostered Cadillac for quite a while and are proud of his progress.

“As soon as he gets on his harness, he immediately turns into service dog mode and becomes very serious, so I think he will do a fantastic job,” Angie said.

Sheri Soltes, the founder of Service Dogs Inc., said the organization trained 19 dogs last year.

“For the class of 2024, a hundred percent of the dogs went through and succeeded, which is unheard of in the industry. Usually it’s 30 to 50%,” Soltes said. “So we’re real proud of that.”

She said all of the dogs have been matched with their new owners and are undergoing additional training depending on the needs of their job. Some dogs are facility dogs like Cadillac, where they work alongside a trained staff member to provide support for a greater number of people. Other dogs are traditional service dogs who work with individuals who have significant loss of hearing or mobility.

“We’re not the Walmart of service dogs; we’re not cranking out 200 dogs a year,” Soltes said. “What distinguishes us is that we custom train each dog to that individual’s preferences. So all the dogs learn some basic behaviors, and then once the client is matched, we add whatever specific behavior they want.”

Soltes said her organization is unique because they don’t breed any of their dogs – they get all of them from shelters in Texas.

“f you can do the job, we don’t care who your parents are,” Soltes said. “So you’ll see a lot of our dogs look like one-of-akind dogs. Every client thinks they have the smartest, most beautiful dog of all, and they’re right.”

When the team from Service Dogs Inc. goes to a shelter, they evaluate dogs for their temperament to see if they can succeed as service dogs.

“We want a dog that’s people-oriented,” Soltes said. “If it’s going to be a potential hearing dog who’s going to alert a deaf person to sounds, we want it to be interested in sounds. We’ll make a little timer go off and see if the dog goes towards it. If it’s going to be a service dog for someone in a wheelchair, we’ll see if it likes to retrieve.”

They are also looking for young adult dogs.

“When they’re 18 months or older, you can x-ray their hips for hip dysplasia to see if the hip socket is healthy. If they’re a big dog and they are younger than 18 months it won’t show up on an x-ray.”

Another big difference between Service Dogs Inc. and other groups is that the dogs are provided to clients free of charge.

“It was important to me to not give the client an extra burden,” Soltes said. “Thanks to community support, we’re in year 37 of doing it like that.”

Candidates who want to be matched with a service dog fill out an online application, and then attend an applicant orientation day where they spend the day at the Service Dogs Inc. campus.

“We share information about the program, we do one-onone interviews, and they have an introductory training session with the dogs,” Soltes said. “And then we decide after that if this is going to be a good partnership.”

The program is limited to Texas residents, because the service includes three months of training after the dog moves to its new home.

“We work with them and their dog in their home, their workplace and their community,” Soltes said. “We’ll go to wherever they tend to go in their community, their grocery store, their shopping mall or whatever, so they’re very comfortable handling the dog in public.”

That also gives the trainers from Service Dogs Inc. a chance to help their client advocate for themselves and ensure that they and their dogs have access to those spaces. That right is set out in the Americans with Disabilities Act, and also in the Texas statute, which Soltes helped write.

“These days it’s better, but over the past 40 years, there used to be more challenges,” Soltes said.

Soltes, who was a trial lawyer before starting Service Dogs Inc., said both the clients and the dogs benefit from this arrangement.

‘The nice thing about this is that everybody wins,” Soltes said. “The dog gets a second chance. And the client gets technology you can hug.”

Service Dogs Inc. is currently looking for new weekend foster families to help support their programs. There’s an application and a brief orientation, both of which can be completed online at their website, www.servicedogs.org. Right now, they only have about six foster families, so a lot of their trainers have to take the dogs home over the weekend.

“We have found that the dogs that have been in foster homes go through training faster and they adjust to their homes with their clients a lot better than when they don’t,” Soltes said.

For prospective foster families, it is best if there are no other dogs in the home, and having a backyard is preferable. It’s also important for families to live in the Dripping Springs area, so they are able to pick up the dog on a Friday afternoon and return it Monday morning.

“We really are grateful for anybody who wants to volunteer,” Soltes said. “They don’t have to commit to a certain number of weekends in a row or anything like that.”

She said foster families will be provided with food and supplies. They don’t have to do any training, or take dogs on walks. Ideally, the dogs are just hanging around in the house or being supervised in the backyard.

“For the dog, it’s like going to your fun uncle or aunt’s house for the weekend,” Soltes said. “It’s for people who love dogs, but don’t want to make a 15-year commitment to a dog.”

This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.