By Eliza Ridgeway

Stephanie Kay, Huberta Hacket and Nancy Schulz pose with their Canine Companion trainee puppies Scotti, Delhi and Berken.

At the annual Los Altos Kiwanis Club Pet Parade next week, watch for Golden and Black Labrador Retrievers wearing matching bandanas and jackets - they may be some of the hardest-working members of our community.

A number of Los Altans raise puppies to be trained by Canine Companions International as skilled aides for children and adults with disabilities. Some care for the females who, after excelling in training, are chosen to breed more of the specialized dogs, and for the new litters of puppies. Other locals train older puppies one-on-one before the dogs are sent to intensive schooling at the program headquarters in Santa Rosa.

Children with disabilities are almost always on the receiving end of help; with a companion dog, they are responsible for caring for their partner and providing functional assistance. A Canine Companion is trained to open doors, pick up dropped keys (or even paper clips) and return them to their human’s lap, turn lights on and off, and even pull manual wheelchairs.

The dogs work with the hearing impaired and the disabled. Some, “facility dogs,” are paired with health-care or education professionals to bring their calm, unconditional love to hospitals or special-education classrooms. In King County, Wash., a Canine Companion has been paired with a prosecutor for the first time. The dog accompanies child witnesses who testify in sexual abuse cases.

The Los Altans who volunteer to raise dogs for the program signed up because they believe in the service the dogs provide and love dogs.

Pat Riches, who cares for Ossa, a breeder, said that her son was one reason they joined the program. “We felt like he had to learn how to give and learn the benefit of hard work,” she said. “Now Ossa’s his best friend.”

Patty Brigham, who also raises a breeder, said that working with the dogs allowed her children to get outside their customary world. “They get to help somebody else, and they learned not to be afraid of talking to handicapped people,” she said.

Helping whelp and raise infant puppies is heart-warming but grueling work. Breeder families raise the puppies until they are 8 to 10 weeks old, administering exercises for temperament and calmness as well as a lot of love. The families become accidental experts in veterinary medicine: After basic training, families learn to respond to emergencies on their own - Los Altan Cindy Hansen once gave a newborn puppy mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

At least 30 percent of the dogs raised in the program don’t have the right temperament for work as Canine Companions, and they end up “changing careers” to work for other agencies or become pets. One Los Altos puppy now works with a bomb squad, and another, a skilled fetcher, works for the city of San Francisco catching crabs in San Francisco Bay.

“You shouldn’t forget that they’re always still dogs, no matter how good or obedient they are,” puppy raiser Huberta Hacket said.

Puppy raisers attend classes with their dogs once a week, practicing commands and socialization. As the puppies mature, they find it easier to understand their human’s commands. The program raises Labrador and Golden Retrievers because the breeds are calm and task oriented. Work requires a lot of focus, but it also gives the dogs a sense of purpose and constant quality time with their humans.

“They get to be with the person they love most in the whole world 24/7,” said puppy-raiser Stephanie Kay. “That’s heaven for a dog.”

“You can tell they are happy because their tails are always wagging when they’re working,” said puppy raiser Nancy Schulz.

All the puppy raisers agreed that parting with the dogs makes for a day full of tears, but they all continue to participate in the program for the cause.

For more information about Canine Companions International, visit www.cci.org or call (800) 572-2275.