Future guide dogs set paws on Hofstra’s campus

Carol, a black labrador retriever, is Hofstra University’s first student-raised puppy. Follow her on Instagram @carolguideshofstra. // Photo courtesy of Nicole Connelly.

The Guide Dog Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing guide dogs and training free of charge to individuals who are blind or have low vision, set its paws on Hofstra University’s campus in an attempt to have students become puppy raisers.

A puppy raiser typically receives a puppy around eight weeks old and, for about a year, socializes the dog by taking them to class, work, running errands and training twice a month. Puppy raisers also housebreak the puppies and teach them to have good manners in the home, according to Lorin Bruzzese, the puppy program manager at the Guide Dog Foundation.

Nicole Connelly, a second-year creative arts therapy graduate student and the first student puppy raiser, sits with Carol. // Photo courtesy of Nicole Connelly.

Nicole Connelly, a second-year creative arts therapy graduate student, is the first Hofstra student to become a puppy raiser. She cares for a black labrador retriever named Carol and takes her to classes and throughout campus, excluding the dorms.

“I would highly recommend being a puppy raiser,” Connelly said. “Not only are you helping others, you’re learning a lot from these puppies and how amazing they really are, and their full capability, that you don’t normally see.”

The Guide Dog Foundation supplied Connelly with a crate, a bowl, a toy, two collars, a leash, Carol’s heartworm, flea and tick medicine and a bag of food. Connelly provides dog food and extra toys, but the Guide Dog Foundation pays for Carol’s vet bills.

“The best experience with Carol is seeing her growth from day one to now,” Connelly said. “Sometimes it’s hard to see if there’s an accident, or she’s not really behaving or if I wanted her to be a little bit more calm, but she’s still a puppy. She’s going to be teething. She’s going to be a little bit hyper, but to see where she is now compared to two months ago is pretty amazing.”

Connelly decided to become a puppy raiser when speaking to one of her professors, who is the liaison for the puppy program between the Guide Dog Foundation and Hofstra. Deborah Eliks-Abuhoff, associate professor and director of the creative arts therapy counseling program in the department of counseling and mental health professions and human services at Hofstra, has been a proponent of students becoming puppy raisers since she became a puppy raiser to a dog named Gray in 2017.

“Gray really broke ground at Hofstra. He was the first puppy to be raised on campus,” Elkis-Abuhoff said. “I was a member of the University Senate, so he would go to the president’s conference room once a month. He had a name [plate]. Everybody knew him. He was at the University Club. He would go to different events. He was always available in my office, in my classroom, so he was very present on campus.”

Hofstra’s administration has been fairly open to the Guide Dog Foundation’s presence on campus and was willing to allow students who are puppy raisers to bring the puppies on campus.

“We had a couple of meetings,” Elkis-Auhoff said. “I will say there were a lot of questions that the [administration] asked, but in the end they came back, and they said, ‘Let’s pilot it on campus, and let’s see what happens.’ So there’s a lot of support for having it there from all the way up.”

Puppy raisers can bring the dogs on campus but are prohibited from entering the dorms with the dogs, leaving some residential students wanting to become puppy raisers upset.

“For someone who is in a single dorm, it’s a good idea to have a dog,” said Shoshana Tieyah, a sophomore biology major. “Having a dog in the dorm can lead to different social experiences that they can’t have if they lived in an actual house. In the dorm, they are around other people, go up and down elevators and try not to get distracted by others.”

The pet policy within the residential halls is that animals other than fish in a five gallon or less tank are prohibited except for service and emotional support animals, according to the living factor guide.

“Residence hall rooms, while adequate for us humans, are small for animals. Sometimes people who have roommates don’t want to live with other animals or people who are on the floor have allergies that make it impossible to live with animals,” said Russ Smith, director of residential education. “Lastly, animals can’t be with students all the time, so they would have to remain in the room. Their animals could have separation anxiety, and they can sometimes create noise disturbances and cause communities to have issues. For example, students need to study and [if] there is a dog barking because it’s missing its owner, that can create a problem.”

Elkis-Abuhoff understands Residence Life’s reasoning but claims that the dogs are well-trained and are under constant supervision.

“I think we have to gain [Residence Life’s] trust,” Elkis-Abuhoff said. “One of the things that I would love to see and would really help our program grow is to allow students in the dorms to be puppy sitters. Let’s say Nicole, who is raising Carol, is at an internship on a Wednesday. Then a couple of vetted residential students could watch Carol for a couple of hours that day.”

Even if the Guide Dog Foundation raises that idea as a possible solution, it doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.

Avery Stenstrom, a freshman undecided major, uses an umbrella to distract Luna, a yellow labrador retriever standing with her puppy raiser Tracy Kemper, during a guide dog class in the Student Center. // Megan Naftali/The Hofstra Chronicle.

“We are open to future discussions. We know that the program has started with commuter students and we are very much in favor of all the work that’s being done,” Smith said. “We think that guide dogs are a great service and we applaud that, but at this time we’re not quite ready to open up that for residence hall space.”

On Monday, Oct. 3, the Guide Dog Foundation held a guide dog class in the Student Center to train students and gauge interest in the program. The next meeting will be held at 1 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 14, in Student Center Room 140. If you are interested in getting involved, you can visit www.guidedog.org/Default.aspx.