Jane’s service dog experience began about 30 years ago with her son’s involvement in the 4H Seeing Eye puppy raising program. They raised 7 Seeing Eye puppies, socializing them and teaching them basic obedience, over the next 7 years. Following the Seeing Eye pups, Jane learned the benefits of positive reinforcement training and attended many classes led by the legendary Ali Brown. During that time she also became a therapy dog team with one of her goldens. She has been involved in therapy dog work for over 15 years.

While Jane loved raising the Seeing Eye pups, she always wanted to train service dog tasks. She ended up having the opportunity to raise and train a mobility assistance dog for a small service dog organization. She also helped at training classes and with litter care for that organization, among other things while volunteering for them for about 5 years.

Jane also bred one of her goldens, then whelped and cared for the litter of golden pups, and donated three to veterans assistance dog organizations.  After she had donated the 3 pups, she was concerned to discover that tasks were being taught without following best practices for weight-bearing mobility work. Because of this, in combination with a diverse group of service dog professionals, she formed a non-profit organization, Mobility Dog Resource Group. MDRG seeks to provide the most accurate resources available to support the longest, healthiest, working life for mobility dog teams.

Jane has been a Team Facilitator for Atlas Assistance Dogs for several years and is currently Atlas’ Client Support Liaison. She is grateful to get to work with many Atlas teams and has learned a lot from them.  She now looks forward to working with more service dog teams in her role as a trainer. She believes that the health and well-being of the canine partner is critical in a long successful assistance dog partnership.