Paws-Up Assistance dog, Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs Training

Assistance Dog Training Program Gets a Big ‘Paws Up’
By Monica Woolard
Published in “The Derby Informer”
July 13, 2005

Robin Pool’s experience living with
quadriplegia and working with her own
service dog is what inspired her to start a
non-profit organization to enhance
independence through partnerships with
assistance dogs. Paws-Up, Inc., which she
founded in 1998, offers programs to provide
individuals the opportunity to acquire an
assistance or professional therapy dog in a
way that best meets their own needs.
Pool, who has been in a wheelchair for 19
years because of a fatty spinal tumor
discovered when she was 10 years old, got
her first service dog, already trained, about
13 years ago.
“When he got to be middle age, I wanted to
be able to train my own,” she said. “There
are very few programs throughout the
United States to assist people who want to
train their own service animals.”
Since Pool was about to get her degree in
business management from Southwestern
College, she felt it was the perfect time for
her to provide a service that was needed.
After years of research, training, talking to
trainers in the field, and a lot of trial and
error with her own dogs, she founded Paws-
Up.
Pool and her volunteer staff at Paws-Up
provide training, education and support as
handlers and assistance or professional
therapy dogs participate in a training
philosophy that emphasizes positive
reinforcement techniques. Dogs can be of a
variety of breeds donated by breeders,
adopted from breed rescue groups and
animal shelters, or they could even be a pet.
When putting dogs and clients together, Pool
said they look at the person’s disability,
their daily activities, and what the dog will
actually need to do for the client.
“We try to match them as much as we can
with their lifestyle and their needs,” she said.

Tom Muskus has been in training with his sheltie,
Molly, for about six months. Molly is being trained to
help Muskus, who has a hearing impairment.

The canines should ideally be 1 to 2 years old, they must
be in good health, and must first pass a temperament
assessment that Pool has developed over the years.“I
wanted to be able to take all that took me years to do and
help other people,” she said. “It’s just an indication – it
weeds out the dogs that are not suited to the training.”
The students and canines then attend two training sessions
each month, held at the Derby Recreation Commission, and
once a month the class goes as a group into various public
settings. It generally takes 6-12 months to train an adult
dog, Pool said.
The Paws-Up programs are focused on three areas:
educating and supporting professionals involved with
assistance and therapy dogs; quality training of assistance
and therapy dogs; promoting public awareness of these
dogs and their benefits. Paws-Up has trained assistance
dogs to help handlers with a wide range of disabilities
including mobility, hearing, seizure and psychiatric. Pool
also trains about two dogs a year herself, but said there is
sometimes a 2-10 year waiting list to receive an already-
trained assistance dog.
Tom Muskus has been in training with his sheltie, Molly,
for about six months.

Robin Pool, executive director of Paws-Up,
Inc. works with her assistance dog, Keefer.

Muskus has hearing impairment and
anxiousness caused by post traumatic stress
syndrome. Muskus said that Molly has done
amazingly well with the training, learning how
to alert him to the doorbell, sirens, tornado
alerts, someone coming into his house, or
someone walking up behind him.
“Everything you and I take for granted you
don’t hear anymore,” he said of his hearing
impairment. “So, Molly has become my ears.
And in public, she is not just my ears, but she
alerts me to someone approaching me from my
blind side.”
Paws-Up is always in need of more volunteers.
For more information on Paws-Up, call 789-
9196, or visit its Web site at www.paws-up.
net.