Carol Drury with Toby during a presentation at Sterling Public Library in 2011.
Carol Drury with Toby during a presentation at Sterling Public Library in 2011. (Journal Advocate file photo)

Carol Drury is working on another miracle.

This one is named Moses.

Drury raises service dogs for Canine Companions for Independence, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based service dog provider. Moses is her fourth dog, a 75-pound, 13-month-old purebred black Labrador retriever. It is an unending process of socialization and training, of just getting to know a dog well followed by the inevitable heartbreak of turning him over to someone who needs him. As emotionally bruising as it may be, though, Carol Drury said she thinks of it as making miracles for people who need them.

It began, Drury said, when her daughter Katelynn needed a 4-H project. She was given the choice of raising a dairy cow or raising a service dog. She chose the dog. The experience was so positive, Drury said, that when Katelynn left home, Mom decided she wanted to raise the puppies herself.

CCI breeds their own dogs, Drury said, and they know that only about 40 percent of their dogs will make it all the way through the intensive training to be paired with humans who face special challenges. According to the organization's information materials, only Labradors (black or gold), golden retrievers, or a cross between the two will do for their purposes. That makes sense, since Audrey Pavia, author of Barron's Labrador Retriever Handbook, and Edie MacKenzie, author of Barron's Dog Bible of Golden Retrievers, agree that both breeds share the necessary traits of being patient, intelligent, very sociable, eager to please, and they enjoy hard work.


Drury's role in the dog's training might be thought of as "boot camp," but with encouragement and reinforcement instead of pushups and long runs. Over a period of about 16 months, she will teach Moses 30 basic commands and socialize him to all kinds of people-intensive situations. After all, the dog will have to accompany his human companion everywhere, so it just makes sense that he has to learn that part first.

"I take him everywhere with me," Drury said. "He goes grocery shopping, to my meetings, to church, everywhere. We have an ID card that says what our mission is and what we're doing. Everywhere that I go, he goes, when the time is appropriate."

And the appropriate time is a key to proper socialization. Drury said she'd never take a small puppy to, say, a carnival midway or festival.

"There's a thing called a fear factor, and if you take a dog to a large gathering (too early) you can ruin him, and he'll never socialize properly," she said.

Once the dog is old enough, it will be introduced to more, and more intense, social occasions. Moses is past that point now and will go with Drury to Sugar Beet Days this year and be fine with it.

Puppy raisers like Drury get their dogs — only one dog per person at a time is CCI's rule — when the puppies are about two months old. After the 16 months of socialization and basic training, the dogs are taken back to California for advanced training. It is here that they will be given a battery of physical and aptitude tests to see what kind of service and what kind of human companions they are best suited for. After that they are matched with and train with their humans to form the all-important bond that will make them ideal companions and help-mates

"After that is a graduation, and we go and officially turn the dog over to the (human companion) and that person tells their story," Drury said. "And so you're basically giving someone a miracle."

That word comes up often on conversation with Drury and in the materials CCI distributes about its program.

"(Dog recipients) will tell you that these dogs are miracles," Drury said. "It will change their life, it will increase their social activities. And for someone who has never been recognized in the world, that's social interaction they've never had before."

Being with a dog 24 hours a day for 16 months means, of course, that the puppy raiser will become emotionally attached to the dog. And that's the hard part — turning one's buddy over to someone else to make miracles. At graduation, Drury said, "... there's a lot of tears. There's a box of (tissues) every third seat, they set it up that way."

Of the three dogs Carol Drury has raised so far — Moses is her fourth — only one has completed the training and been successfully matched with a needful person. One dog, a 105-pound giant named Toby, was perfect in every way except that he was just too big. Drury said CCI was afraid he would frighten the people who needed him most and so released him from the program. He now lives with the Drurys as a highly-trained, well-behaved "therapist." Another dog was likewise successful but didn't form a bond with the person who needed him. Still, if Moses bonds and works out for a human companion, Drury will be beating the averages.

Drury said she doesn't wait long between dogs. As soon as one has been returned to California for advanced training, she asks for another puppy, and the process begins anew. And she doesn't see it ending any time soon. Asked what she gets out of the process, Carol Drury is gracious enough to pretend it's an intelligent question. And she answers with her own question:

"How often do you get to give someone a miracle?"

Jeff Rice: 970-526-9283,