More than 120 puppies are born at the Israel Guide Dog Center each year.
When they are eight weeks old, they are given to volunteer foster families who provide them with a warm, loving home, socialization, and obedience training for the first year of their lives. They help the tiny puppies to gradually become accustomed to many changes and stimuli with the help of constant guidance from our professional trainers.
Our volunteers put these puppies through their paces to acquire the skills they will need as guide dogs, service dogs for IDF veterans coping with post-trauma, or emotional support dogs for children on the autism spectrum. At the end of the year, the puppy raisers return the dogs to our Center for evaluation, specialized training, and partnering with clients. We are proud of our foster puppy-raising families who enable us to provide dogs for people in need!
PUPPY RAISING IS OUR MOST POPULAR VOLUNTEER PROGRAM
– over 600 people apply every year. Most of our puppy raisers are university students – on campus. We have tracked outcomes and discovered the success rate is higher if the volunteer…
• Doesn’t have a pet dog
• Has no children under eight years old
• Has no more than two roommates
• Is over 21 years old
• Doesn’t leave the puppy alone for more than five hours a day
• Takes two 30-minute walks per day with the puppy
• Is willing to wait over a year for a puppy to raise