That’s what the headline and angle for this story could’ve actually been (or something like it) if someone wanted to write it that way.

The story I’m referring to is this article from The Oregonian a few days ago about Canine Companions for Independence puppies being raised at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility for women in Wilsonville, OR:

“Future service dogs get their training by women inmates at Coffee Creek lockup”

It’s a good story, too (albeit with a few inaccuracies – for example, they aren’t “therapy dogs”), but my point is that, as I’ve said before, there are a number of service dog organizations who have puppy raising programs in prisons and place dogs with wounded veterans as well.  Some definitely do a much better job of promoting themselves than others, too, but you need to be very careful not to confuse the quality of the public relations effort with the overall quality of the program.

I remain convinced that Canine Companions is the premier service dog organization in this country, and that’s why I’ve chosen to concentrate my efforts there.  That surely doesn’t mean they are “the only game in town” and, in fact, contrary to what some seem to believe, they don’t want to be, either – there’s no way in the world CCI could handle the need for assistance dogs all by themselves, and they are well aware of that.

Make no mistake – while I’m a “CCI guy”, I’m for ANY service dog organization that’s doing a top-notch job of providing dogs for veterans, the key being “top-notch”, a subject I’ve addressed here many times.  Let’s just say I continue to see things organizations say about themselves that, as a minimum, are a stretch, and, at worst, could be intentionally misleading.

No organization is perfect, but that’s something I’ve just never seen from Canine Companions – if anything, they don’t toot their horn enough, certainly not anywhere near as much as I’d like them to. I think I have a good idea why that is, too – as I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t speak for CCI, but I have had a close association with them for enough years now to understand some things, so I can give you an educated opinion here.

First, they are very, very sensitive to graduate privacy or, to put it more bluntly, they aren’t gonna pimp their graduates. They certainly don’t hide them – you can go to the newsletters on the website and see pictures of all the graduate teams, for example.  But when you see a very public and active graduate team, that’s because they’ve chosen to be that way on their own with no pressure from CCI.

Second, there is also a great sensitivity to not pandering to what’s popular, especially where veterans are concerned. That means you won’t likely ever see CCI changing their core mission – as some service dog organizations have done without even mentioning it – from training dogs for those with severe physical disabilities to training dogs for those whose primary diagnosis is post-traumatic stress.  (The irony being that post-traumatic stress will almost certainly be present in a veteran with the type of physical injuries we’re talking about, anyway.)

Unfortunately, that sensitivity has also meant Canine Companions hasn’t talked about the work they have done to incorporate post-traumatic stress into both the screening of candidates and training of dogs.  For example, they long ago brought in outside post-traumatic stress experts who sat down for several days with training staff to discuss this subject in detail.  Those discussions were very successful and resulted in a number of improvements in both those areas – I hope someday you’ll be hearing about that directly from CCI instead of just me.

Bottom line is that you can be confident and comfortable in what Canine Companions is doing with veterans – you just may have to work a little harder to see it.  Some organizations might do a better job of promoting themselves, but no one does a better job making individually matched lifelong placements of assistance dogs.