Finding a friend who loves to help overcome challenges
If you doubt the old adage about dogs being man’s best friend, just ask Cooper Wagoner.
Fifteen-year-old Cooper’s new best buddy is Frisco, a three-year-old golden retriever/labrador mix specially trained to be a companion in the fullest sense of the word.
Cooper has Down’s syndrome and has difficulty with day-to-day tasks, especially communicating. Thanks to an organization called Canine Companions and a dedicated teacher in Calverton, Tina Wallace, he and Frisco are facing those challenges together.
“They’re like two peas in a pod,” says Jill Wagoner, Cooper’s mom.
“We had no question in our hearts that this is where Frisco needed to be,” agrees Ms. Wallace, who trained him for a year and a half.
The process that brought Cooper and Frisco together began three years ago when the Wagoner family, of Westminster, MD, applied to Canine Companions, a nationwide nonprofit whose Northeast headquarters are in Medford.
They joined dozens of others for whom a companion dog could be of tremendous benefit — veterans with PTSD, stroke victims, people confined to wheelchairs (“pull dogs” can help them get around).
That kicked off a highly organized and meticulous dating service. There was a phone interview, then a visit to Medford, then a wait of two years while a suitable match was found among all the dogs Canine Companions breeds and trains.
The actual training began even earlier, when Frisco was an eight-week-old puppy. That’s when he took up residence with the Wallaces, among the corps of volunteer “puppy trainers” who prepare their charges for even more training when they’ve matured.
“Everyone loves puppies,” says Ms. Wallace, who is a BOCES teacher of visually impaired students in the Riverhead and Mattituck/Cutchogue schools. “You can’t help but fall in love with them.”
Frisco was the sixth puppy the Wallace family had taken on for early education. That includes “potty training,” and exercises in “socialization,” including riding on the train and on the ferry to Shelter Island.
“They can’t be afraid,” she explains.
Frisco also began learning the 40 commands service dogs are trained to follow. Among them: Open a door, find a lost object, turn on the lights (with a nose).
Ms. Wallace says Frisco was a model student. “He was the most laid-back one we’ve ever had,” she says, so mild-mannered that he acquired the nickname Potato.
The education continued when Frisco and his peers returned to Canine Companions in Medford. In addition to the training, the young dogs were evaluated to see which might be a good match for the folks seeking a companion.
Four months ago, the Wagoners and 10 other families traveled to Medford, where they were introduced to their prospective service dogs. All spent two weeks together, the dogs joining the families in their dorm rooms, getting to know each other.
“It’s like a reality TV show,” recalls Ms. Wagoner.
Cooper and Frisco hit it off immediately, At “graduation,” the ceremony where each new family is presented with an official leash, Cooper wanted to offer a toast to all the graduates. “But he had stage fright,” Ms. Wallace recalled, “and the words couldn’t come. Then he looked at Frisco, he hugged him, and the whole speech came out.”
“They’re best buds,” says Ms. Wagoner, with complementary dispositions. “Cooper is sweet, understated, docile. We wanted a lower energy dog.”
Canine Companions is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. John Bentsinger, marketing manager, figures it costs $60,000 to breed and train each dog, which is provided to the families free of charge. The organization is entirely privately funded, he says.
Ms. Wallace stays in touch with the Wagoners and the other families to whom she’s sent dogs. She even sends them baby pictures of her former students.
She and her family — three sons, one daughter and husband Matthew, a nurse — are in the process of training a new recruit, Bundle, another lab/golden retriever mix.
“It’s so satisfying, the end result,” she says. “We love them as our own.”
