Volunteer Programs

Volunteers are key to the success of Dogs with Wings. Volunteers provide us with assistance in all areas of our operation: from our Board of Directors, to Puppy Cuddler and Foster Homes, Adult Foster Homes, and short-term Boarding Homes. They help us with casinos, fundraising events and even handy man jobs.

The four main volunteer positions are:

Puppy Foster Home

 Love puppies? We have a couple of programs that may interest you. Can you have a puppy with you during the day? Are you able to come to puppy class once a week? Can you provide a loving home for a puppy from 8 weeks of age to approximately 14 months? These are all considerations for our Puppy Raisers. The role of the Puppy Raiser is to socialize the puppy to as many different environments and situations as possible: offices, restaurants, malls, elevators, public transportation. The ultimate goal is to help the puppy develop sufficient social skills and behaviours to enable it to be accepted in all environments. The Director of Training oversees this program, the training classes and assesses the progress of the puppy.

We also have an Early Education Program for some of our puppies. In this program, the volunteer delivers the puppy to our Training Centre Monday through Friday and our training staff will work with the pups during the day. The raisers keep the pup overnight, and on weekends. This program is modelled on our Adult Foster Home, and additional details can be found in that section.

Traditional Puppy Raiser Criteria
Traditional Puppy Raiser Application
Early Education Puppy Raiser Criteria
Early Education Puppy Raiser Application 

Adult Foster Home

In the second stage of training, the dog moves into an adult foster home.This is where the assistance dog will live for the next approximately12 to 14 months while they receive their final training. These homes provide a low stress, stable and caring home environment while the dog is in advanced training. The dog is delivered to our facility every morning and picked up at the end of the day by the foster family. During the day, the dog will have one-on-one instruction with our apprentices under the direction of our Director of Training. This program gives the training staff the opportunity to observe every aspect of the dog's social behaviour in and out of the working environment.

Adult Raiser Criteria
Adult Raiser Application 

Boarding Home

These volunteers provide temporary accommodations to our dogs in training. These situations arise when foster families have vacations or last-minute trips away from Edmonton, ensuring that our dogs are never kenneled. The time commitment could be as short as a weekend or up to a few weeks. The home training program for the dog is continued while in the boarding home.

Boarding Home Application

The training jackets worn by all puppies in the training program make the volunteers in our Foster Home programs highly visible, public ambassadors for Dogs with Wings.

Puppy Cuddler

Puppy Cuddling involves being able to come to our facility for scheduled times between the hours of 9am-4pm Monday thru Friday. You are not required to "train" the puppy but we do have guidelines to be followed. We want our volunteer to come and socialize the puppy as much as possible which means holding them, handling them, touching their feet, face, ears and tail, taking them out to be relieved, and of course playing with them! We usually schedule people in 1-2 hour time slots. Please note that we are not accepting applications for the Puppy Cuddling program until the end of summer as it is full. Please check back then!

Puppy Cuddler Criteria
Puppy Cuddler Application