Can Do Canines places 900 dogs
At age 35, Alan Peters B’74 thought to himself … there has to be more in life.
The psychology and human development major, who once planned to become a counselor, no longer felt fulfilled with selling insurance and flipping houses.
“I wanted something more out of life,” he said. “I wanted to do something to help people.”
When his fiancee (now wife) came home with a brochure about training dogs for people who are deaf, a spark ignited.
“We did some market research in Minnesota and found out there were a lot of people who were deaf and could use that service, but No. 1, there were very few dogs being trained, and No. 2, the people who were deaf didn’t have the additional income to be able to purchase a dog like that. It costs thousands of dollars to train a dog,” he said.
“That almost sounded like a dead end, but I learned about the nonprofit world,” he added. “I learned I could raise money to provide them free of charge.”
So, in 1987, from a spare bedroom in his home, with no official training in the nonprofit world or fundraising, very little money, and a staff of primarily one, he founded what grew into Can Do Canines in New Hope, Minn.
By 1989, the first team — dog and client — was placed, Annie and Marcy.
And since then, 900 dogs have been partnered, with another 45 or more being trained for placement this year, all at no cost to their clients. The staff has grown to 50 (with hundreds of volunteers), and the business — an industry leader — is now run from a 25,000-square-foot training facility.
Although he has hundreds of stories of how Can Do Canines has made people’s lives more independent, there’s one sad story in particular that continues to weigh on Peters.
Early in this career, a hearing dog named Suzy was placed with a woman named Carol in Minneapolis. “Back then I was doing almost everything,” he said, explaining that he would get to know both the dogs and their partners well. “I would pick the dog, find the trainer, work with the trainer. And then I’d video them working together as a test to make sure the dog is working perfectly for tests like a smoke alarm or when someone rings a doorbell,” he said. “When it was completed, she said to me, ‘Al, I have one other thing; could you train little Suzy to alert me when my blood sugar is going to go low? Sometimes it goes low very suddenly and I’m afraid one day I’m going to die in my sleep.’
“This was long before we started training dogs for those with diabetes,” he explained. “Right then it sounded like a pipe dream. We didn’t know how yet to train a dog like that. I told her I’d think about it but I didn’t think we could help.”
A year and a half later Peters learned that Carol had died while asleep in her bed with Suzy beside her. “I felt terrible,” he said, his voice cracking. “And it took that push for me to investigate how dogs could help with that disability.”
Through the years, Can Do Canines has trained dogs to not only help those with hearing loss and Type 1 Diabetes complicated by hypoglycemia unawareness, but also children with autism and individuals with seizures and mobility challenges.
And he’s heard several stories about how the service dogs have helped save many other lives.
“They keep kids with autism safe,” he said. “Children with autism often bolt away from their mom or dad. By the time they are 7 or 8, they can be faster than their parents and they can run out into the street or are often attracted to water. The dogs are tethered to the children, between a waist belt on the child and a backpack on the dog. As soon as it gets tugged on, the dog lays down and won’t let them run.”
Peters adds that dogs have an overall tendency to make life better just by being near.
“I’ve always been a dog lover,” he said. “Some people do better with their disabilities when they feel better about themselves. Dogs lift spirits and help them look at the positive side of life or with what they are living with.”
Another group of individuals who have been helped through Can Do Canines are inmates who are assisting with training.
“We currently have 275 dogs and puppies in process in order to place about 45 dogs this year. It takes 600 volunteers, and we have 170 inmates in eight prisons, federal and state, who are raising and training dogs in Wisconsin and Minnesota,” he said. “The dogs benefit greatly by having someone fully dedicated to them. The inmates really do not have a lot in their lives so the dog becomes a primary focus. It gets all their attention, so they do a great job for us in terms of training.”
Where the inmates cannot train — in the socialization areas like car rides and shopping malls — other volunteers step in.
As their dogs must be able to live long and healthy lives with no additional cost to their owners, most of their dogs are bred, but others come from shelters, creating yet another life-saving partnership.
Peters continued to serve as executive director of Can Do Canines until his retirement in 2021. Even now, he continues to take one of the trained service dogs to nursing homes to lift residents’ spirits.
“The bigger we got, I was dealing more with money and staff and the board of directors and less and less with the clients,” he said. “My favorite time of year was when we would have graduation events with 15 of these teams; that’s when I would feel really good and would get to ask them how their lives have changed and how they feel about their dogs. Knowing we’ve helped so many feels good.”
