Article by Freelancer Ava Castelli
Terps Raising Pups, a program at the University of Maryland, has persevered through the pandemic even though there were many challenges along the way. The program, a chapter of the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, has, like many other clubs and organizations on campus, had to adjust to a new normal during the pandemic. The pandemic has impacted transportation, training and recruitment for the dogs and members of the program.
University of Maryland senior Shannen Auffarth has been raising and training a yellow lab named Edward as part of Terps Raising Pups since last December, when he was given to her at only eight weeks old.
Terps Raising Pups, first established in September 2016, faced challenges when the pandemic first hit in March 2020 that continues to impact the organization today.
At the start of COVID-19, Terps Raising Pups had to adapt to transportation restrictions and no longer being on campus but still having to train and raise the puppies, Auffarth said. Transportation restrictions during the pandemic not only blocked the foundation from sending more puppies to Terps Raising Pups members, but dogs that were ready to be sent back for final training were unable to go.
This meant those who were raising those puppies, along with those who just received ones from the foundation before campus shut down, had to bring the dogs home with them.
While this essentially limited the need of sitters because everyone was going to be home, what was normally a two person job raising the puppies became the sole responsibility of whoever took the dog.
Auffarth, who had just sent Indy, the dog she was raising at the time, back to the foundation for final training before the pandemic hit, didn’t request to raise another dog right away.
“I couldn’t raise another dog…because my mom is allergic to dogs so anytime I was home, I couldn’t have a dog with me,” Auffarth said.
With COVID-19 forcing people off campus and classes to be online, training for the puppies was moved online too. This became a challenge for raisers because part of training the puppies involves social interaction which they would have normally received on campus. But with businesses shutting down during the peak of the pandemic, it limited the amount of social interaction the puppies could receive.
Senior Lexi Kruger, the Head of Outreach and an Area Coordinator for the program, has been volunteering to raise puppies for America’s VetDogs, the Guide Dog Foundation’s sister program, since fall of 2019. As area coordinator for Terps Raising Pups, Kruger helps oversee other people raising guide dogs in addition to helping run the training classes that volunteers are expected to attend three times a month.
“I think the struggle still remains to socialize these dogs in a way that’s going to really help them be prepared for the future,” said Kruger, a neurobiology/physiology and psychology double major.
Once brought back onto campus at the start of the school year, the program still faced issues with “pandemic puppies,” which were dogs who were raised through online classes during the majority of the pandemic.
COVID-19 also impacted the recruitment rate of raisers, since one of the biggest ways the program recruits is by having the dogs in public and on campus. With classes being online and people out socializing less, the number of people interested in being raisers decreased, according to Kruger.
Jenna Kobel, a junior environmental science and policy major, faced struggles raising Zendo, a black lab and golden retriever mix, when she received him last year during November.
“I was able to go to a fair amount of [puppy training] classes when I first got him, but when covid got worse during the winter, they cut back on a lot of classes and it was just hard for me to go to them,” Kobel said.
Though the pandemic is not over, the organization is still on its feet with about 15 puppies currently on campus, 30 raisers, and about 60-70 sitters total, according to the most recent statistics provided by Auffarth, who counted the numbers based off of data collected by Terps Raising Pups.