Hearts of Gold, WVU’s service dog training program, is seeking community members to foster puppies in training.
Hearts of Gold is a collaborative program in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design that teaches students and volunteers how to train service animals and match them to appropriate owners.
The program conducts research on the impact of service dogs on their owners’ lives, according to its website.
Jean Meade, co-director of Hearts of Gold, said the puppies available for fostering are around eight to nine weeks old. Throughout their year of ownership, foster parents are responsible for intermingling their puppy with other people and animals, basic care and building confidence.
Meade started Hearts of Gold in 2006 to give pre-veterinary students hands-on experiences with animal breeding and behavioral training.
Following a grant from the United States Department of Defense in 2018, the program shifted its focus to training dogs for veterans with mobility issues, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological disabilities.
“It was more for the education of students than it was for training dogs,” Meade said.
Since the program’s inception, Meade said community fostering has become a priority as the program grows.
“The very early years of a puppy’s life are like that of a child’s,” Meade said. “It’s where their foundational years come from and their confidence develops.”
The fostering process is free of cost to volunteers, who are provided with food, collars, leashes, medical care and training support. Individuals interested in becoming a foster host for the program are required to complete a brief online training course and attend in-person training classes for the first eight weeks of ownership.
The program also offers foundational trainers who specialize in training puppies to foster parents during their first year.
Hearts of Gold receives some of its dog's from non-profit organization Human-Animal Bond, which Meade serves of the president of. Human-Animal Bond also conducts research on strengthening human and animal bonds, according to its website.
Individuals interested in fostering a service dog in training can submit an application on Human-Animal Bond’s website.
Hearts of Gold Program Manager Anne Russell said that fostering service dogs in training gives individuals and families an opportunity to take care of a pet without the long-term commitment.
“I’ve seen the magic of humans and dogs working together for a greater purpose,” Russell said. “Nothing is better than talking to our clients and seeing how the dogs have helped.”
Meade said that for many foster families, giving the dog away after the initial year of training is the hardest part.
“The hardest thing is to imagine taking on an adorable puppy, keeping it for a year and having to give it up,” Meade said. “We ask people to keep that in mind when they’re thinking about fostering. It is to help someone with a disability.”
Following their year as a foster, Hearts of Gold puppies begin further training at Morgantown’s Federal Correctional Institution.
Taught by Russell and other certified trainers, the classes benefit inmates and teach the dogs discipline and specialized training.
The program’s dogs are certified in a variety of tasks catered to their clients, including scoping areas for safety, turning on lights, retrieving medication, replacing a cane or even doing the laundry, according to Meade.
After training is complete, service dogs are matched with a veteran from the program’s application pool who resides within a 100-mile radius of Morgantown. Veterans who receive a service dog are also required to partake in a home visit and multiple training classes.
“We work with them once we know what tasks they need for the dogs to perform for them to identify the dogs we have that are capable of doing that work,” Meade said. “Then, we begin to match personalities between dogs and people.”
The University currently offers two service dog training courses that are open to all students interested in learning how to train dogs to become service animals: Animal and Veterinary Science classes 276 and 277.
Community members can support Hearts of Gold by donating. The program is currently funded solely by government and individual grants, ensuring no cost to volunteers, according to Meade.
For more information about the service animals and volunteering for Hearts of Gold, visit its website at heartsofgold.wvu.edu/home.
