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Have you ever thought of signing your dog up to volunteer for a job? Dogs are not only great pets, they also help us make work a bit easier. Letting them volunteer is a great way for them to get enough exercise and avoid developing degenerative myelopathy. Many organizations and industries need dogs to when completing tasks and workloads. You might be interested in helping out or you could also be working in a field where your dog can serve together with you.
Below are common jobs for dogs and how your four legged friend can help. Police/military dogs
Most police and military tasks are given to dogs because of their agility, speed, and sense of smell. Dogs are used for search and rescue, bomb and narcotics sniffing, and attack dogs. Most dogs used by the police and the military are German Shepherds, Labradors, Belgian Shepherd Dog or Malinois, Dobermans and Rottweiler. These powerful dogs are trained to serve and protect and are taken to the field.
Therapy dogs
If your dog is loveable, approachable and friendly, it can be a big help as a therapy dog. Many hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation centers use these therapy dogs to help their patients get well faster. Therapy dogs bring joy and a smile to anyone’s face. There are no common breeds for therapy dogs, as long as your dog is supper approachable and friendly, it can be trained to be one. Guide dog
Dogs can be used as eyes and ears as well. Training your dog to become a guide dog is scary, since the person’s life is placed in the dog’s hands. You dog needs to be smart, fast and attentive to become a guide. They also need to be a bit big. Most guide dogs are medium to large sized dogs since it’s easier for the person to feel their presence. Search and rescue
You’ve probably heard of the stories of dogs who go up to mountains and forest to look for lost trekkers or people who have been covered in the snow. With this job, people will depend on your dog to save the people who got stranded or lost along the trail. If you have a dog that’s loyal, easy to train, healthy and has a big build, then it can be trained as a search and rescue dog.
The down side of having dogs work is that they will need to retire someday. You dog could be too old to work or might develop degenerative myelopathy because of age. Either way, most retired dogs are well taken care of and are placed in special programs.
Search and Rescue Dogs are often mistaken as “rescue dogs”, given that the two dog classifications bear a word – rescue – which means two different things for each of the two types.
The subject in the 1905 silent movie classic, Rescued by Rover, search and rescue dogs are actually working dogs which are smart enough to be trained to take part in organized search and rescue operations, with the classic silent movie successfully depicting the vital roles and capabilities inherent in search and rescue dogs.
They are different from “rescue dogs”, in the sense that rescue dogs or rescued dogs constitute a type of dog which had been rescued from animal shelters and/or dog pounds, hence the name “rescue dog”.
Generally, the involvement of search and rescue dogs in rescue operations entail wilderness searches/tracking, with their involvement in search operations after natural disasters or mass casualty events being also well documented and known.
Though a specific search and rescue dog breed is not exactly formally defined, dog breeds with tuned senses and physical constitutions are often opted for different search and rescue operations, including airscenting, tracking and trailing.
Climate also plays a vital role in which dog breed is best in taking the role of a search and rescue dog, along with the overall temperament or composure of a particular breed playing a vital role in assessing a search and rescue dog’s role in search and rescue operations.
Given a search and rescue dog’s sharper and keener senses, their active involvement in search and rescue operations have helped such operations accomplish their goals, saving lives as they go about their duties as rescuers.
As trained professionals, search and rescue dogs take their duties and responsibilities seriously, helping those who are in need of help however way they can.
Oddly enough, a tenured dog show just was recently charged with animal cruelty, something which comes as unexpected, even a shocker.
A judge for the American Kennel Club, 69 year old Margaret Hamilton was prosecuted with the charge due to keeping around one hundred dogs in poor living conditions. Officials from King County received an anonymous tip regarding how Hamilton kept dogs in horrific conditions, with the tip reported to have come from the Pasado’s Safe Haven, an animal shelter based in Sultan, Washington.
Based on reports, representatives from animal rescue groups and officials managed to gain access to a home based in Burien, and managed to take visual record footage of the homing conditions of the dogs, described as “deplorable”.
Cramped and crowded, the state of the dog’s homing is described as cramped and unkempt, with cages put on top each other, with un-cleaned empty dish trays and water bowls.
The Burien house has been determined to be that of a Theodore Stober, a landlord renting the house’s basement to Hamilton. Based on reports, the Hamiltons were utilizing the space as a shelter/kennel for their dogs, with most of them being top show dogs in the past.
A bulk of the dogs rescued were Chihuahuas, with 38 dogs found to have hair matted with feces. Medical afflictions were also noted to be in a number of the dogs, including cases of dogs with decomposing jaw bones.
Out of those found, thirteen of them had to be euthanized because of compounded health problems.
It is one thing to love dogs, but to have close to a hundred of them, and not being in the capacity to properly take care of them says something about the importance of being realistic, and truly concerned with a dog’s overall well being.
