Canine Companions celebrates 15 years in Medford

Drive along Middle Island Road in Medford, and you’re likely to drive right past Canine Companions’ Northeast Regional Training Center without paying it much thought.

But tucked back from the road is the 39-acre Miller Family Campus, where Canine Companions employees and volunteers carry on the life-changing work of training service dogs to assist military veterans and disabled children and adults, with activities most of us take for granted: picking up a lost sock, turning on a light switch, or opening a door.

Since relocating to Medford in 2008 from much smaller quarters at Farmingdale State College, the Northeast Regional Training Center has trained more than 1,000 teams of service dogs and the humans they assist. As one of Canine Companions’ six regional training centers, it serves clients from Maine to Virginia.

On Saturday, Canine Companions held a grand celebration to honor the 15th anniversary of the Miller Family Campus, which is named for the family of Canine Companions’ national treasurer and past board chairman, John Miller.

Josh Gage, a U.S. Air Force veteran from Springfield, Mass., knows firsthand how important Canine Companions’ service dogs can be.

Gage, who developed post-traumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities as a result of his military service, received a Canine Companions service dog named Maverick, who has been an important addition to his family.

“He allowed me to have my independence back,” Gage said. “He’s been such a blessing to us. He saved my life.”

On Saturday, Canine Companions also honored the life of the late Max Gold, a longtime volunteer.

“Max was an important part of this campus,” Miller said. “He was just a very, very special guy.”

PenFed Credit Union CEO James Schenck, a longtime supporter of Canine Companions, was presented with its Corporate Hero Award.

The afternoon also included a video message from Jean Schulz, Canine Companions national board member and board chair emeritus, and the showing of “Andy, A Dog’s Tale,” an animated short film directed by Jamy Wheless. 

The film tells the story of a dog trained by Canine Companions, who becomes a service dog for a wheelchair-bound girl.

The demand for service dogs is on the rise, and an auction Saturday raised money to train additional service dogs. It costs more than $50,000 to train each dog, which can respond to more than 40 commands.

There is also “an ever-increasing” waiting list of people asking for service dogs, Northeast Region executive director Deborah Dougherty said.

Canine Companions’ six training centers have a total of about 600 people waiting for a service dog. The dogs are either golden retrievers or Labrador retrievers, or a mix of both.

Volunteers raise the dogs in their homes for a year and a half, and then they come to the training center for six to nine months of training with a professional trainer.

Canine Companions wants to double the number of on-site dormitory rooms where people stay when they come to Medford to work with the dogs before receiving them, Dougherty said. The Hagedorn Team Training Residence currently has 11 rooms.