Fill To Capacity (Where Heart, Grit and Irreverent Humor Collide)

Wagging Tails, Open Hearts: The Power of Helping Paws

• Pat Benincasa • Episode 112

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🐾 What does it mean to truly give someone their life back?

Alyssa Golob, Executive Director of Helping Paws, takes us inside their mission to train service dogs for people with physical disabilities, veterans, and first responders with PTSD.

From a mother's loving calls to her struggling son—"go play with the dogs"—to a 15-year-old girl opening her bedroom door independently for the first time, these stories reveal dignity restored, fear conquered, and freedom reclaimed. 🌟

Discover how puppies destined to change lives begin training at just three days old, and how volunteers commit two years of their hearts for the ultimate gift: independence. Alyssa shares insights on leadership, trust, and yes—how many dog selfies she really has on her phone.

Beneath the training and graduations lies something profound: sometimes the most powerful healing comes not from what we receive, but from what we're willing to give.💓

Link:  Helping Paws

Today's episode is brought to you by the Joan of Arc Scroll Medal, a beautiful brass alloy medal, designed by award-winning artist, Pat Benincasa. This uniquely shaped medal is ideal for holiday or as a special occasion gift!    Visit www.patbenincasa-art.com


Please Note: The views expressed by our guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcaster.

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Pat:

Fill To Capacity where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.

Pat:

Hi, I am Pat Benincasa, and welcome to Fill To Capacity , Episode 112, "Wagging Tails, Open Hearts: The Power of Helping Paws. Now, before we begin, I'd like to take a moment. Minnesota is still grieving the loss of representative Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog Gilbert. What stays with me most is how they lived quietly, generously, and with a hands-on passion for Helping Paws. They didn't just support this mission, they lived it. They trained dogs, they gave their time, and they changed lives. Now, this episode is not about loss, it's about the work they loved and the legacy still growing. With that said, now meet Alyssa Golob, executive director of Helping Paws. Welcome, Alyssa. So nice to have you here.

Alyssa:

Good morning. Yeah, thanks for having me, and I'm so excited to be with you and talk about the work we do.

Pat:

And I have so many questions for you, but I, I'm gonna start so my listeners can kind of get a sense of who you are. What drew you to helping Pause, and what made you say Yes to stepping in as executive director?

Alyssa:

Oh, I love that question. You know, I've always witnessed and believed in the power of dogs, healing people. I have two sons. One is 20, finishing his freshman year in college, and he is actually on the autism spectrum. He has Asperger's, and he had quite a hard time through school. Really just didn't quite fit in. Teachers struggled with his high IQ and low EQ at the time.

Pat:

Let me add, "EQ" means emotional intelligence. That's how tuned in you are to your own emotions and to other people's emotions.

Alyssa:

And he ended up having to do school at home before it was popular during COVID times, and there was no work from home back then. And he was getting quite depressed. And we had two dogs at home. So I would call him every 30, 40 minutes and say, go play with the dogs. Go take a break with the dogs, go take a nap with the dogs. Go play catch with the dogs. And I truly believe that that interaction and having that unconditional love from this amazing legged creature really helped him get through that very hard time. And so when I saw this position available, I was looking for a small nonprofit, and that's kind of my niche.

Alyssa:

I love a small nonprofit to come build up and Helping Paws was looking for their first executive director, and I really just couldn't even believe that that was a job. Like I just couldn't even believe that this was an opportunity. And so I applied and I waited out. I waited, I'm sure I made the search committee crazy, but finally got that interview. And I'm grateful every single day that that committee chose me. I'm still sometimes stunned know that I'm qualified, know that I've got this, but still I'm, I'm like living this dream. Yeah. I'm living this dream to watch dogs and people help each other. It's just quite, it's quite wonderful.

Pat:

Oh, yes, I can relate to what you're saying. I loved teaching art. I loved being in the studio classroom surrounded by intensely creative students and watching them grow into their talent. Whoa. Nothing better than that. And I could not believe I got paid to do this. Right,

Alyssa:

Right. It's such a passion.

Pat:

And I go in every day and see these incredible creative young people, and I think, whoa, I get paid. Yes, I do understand that pinch me moment, like, wow, this is wonderful. So yes.

Alyssa:

I love it. Every day. I love it.

Pat:

I wanna fast forward a little bit then. What's something you've learned about leadership that only this kind of work could teach you?

Alyssa:

Well, you know, so when I got to Helping Paws, they, they did not have an executive director. They had two kind of program leads. One was a development director, and one was the programs director. And so they each kind of ran their own team. And when I got here, those teams were very isolated from each other. They were in silos really. And so I had to take, bring these two teams together. I said from the very beginning, guys, like the development team tells the story of the programs team work with these dogs. And if the development team cannot talk to the programs team to tell a good story, you know, even in a nonprofit, there's a business element to it. And the development team is the sales team, and the program team is the product. And we have to be able to work together.

Alyssa:

And that took a long time. That was a year's worth of work to get those two teams to trust each other and to work together and to see that this symbiotic relationship had to happen for the success of the organization. And I never had to come into an organization and bring two teams that should have been working so closely together, together and like, like I said, trust each other. It was kind of wild, you know, I guess what I learned in that situation is just patience and listening and trying to dig like, what's behind this and where is this coming from and how do we mend that to move forward? And I think through that, a lot of trust was built not only with the team, but with me saying, oh, like she understands us and she's gonna lead us in a way that feels safe.

Pat:

The beauty of what you just said, your approach was a problem-solving approach based on respect and the fact that you actually listened and then you probed a little deeper to see what, what's causing this. I can imagine that that would create some kind of, uh, bond between the people you work with that they say, whoa, she's really looking at this, not judging it, she's looking at it. How can we be better? That's really a, a, a hallmark of leadership as opposed to coming in saying, okay, you guys are gonna merge. We're gonna be doing, you know, it didn't sound like a top down. This is what we're gonna do. It sounded like the bottom up.

Alyssa:

And that's how I've always approached it. I mean Helping Paws. We're a, a small, small, you know, we're growing, but we're a small organization still. And you can catch me vacuuming up a training room or plunging a toilet. I really believe that we're all in it together. You know, again, that's my kind of love of a smaller nonprofit is this very big team approach. It's not me in an ivory tower. I'll change the light bulb if I have to. Yeah. I, I think there's a beauty in that as we get bigger, you know, it's figuring some of that out because my office time has become more important, but you'll still see me out there. I still take dogs for walks and pick up poop.

Pat:

Okay. I'm curious. It sounds like you have a calendar jammed with to do lists and you're running a changing organization, lots of demands, lots of growth. What keeps you grounded?

Alyssa:

The stories, you know, I can hear how a dog helped a veteran or a first responder or someone with a physical disabilities. I probably hear those stories a hundred times a week, or I'm involved telling the story or listening to a story or reading the script of a story that my marketing guy is doing. But it never, ever ceases to amaze me. And I think that that's what does it for me. Is that the stories fill me up even though they have common threads. And even though sometimes it feels like a repeat, it's not a repeat for that person, it's their story. I might be hearing a similar story over and over and over and over again, but for that person, that's their life changing story. Those stories fill me every day and every day, you know, in every meeting I have with my senior staff, I say, you know, it's all about the mission guys.

Alyssa:

How do we match dogs and give lifelong independence to people who need them? How do we further independence with the use of an assistance dog? And if the idea you're bringing me or the goal we want, if it doesn't fit into that mission, we ain't doing it. And so, my mission is putting dogs with people. Okay. And that's my mantra every day. And I think that that's what drives me and fills me up and feeling like, oh, what are we doing? You know, I'll go down to our Blue Coat Academy and watch the dogs being trained and get filled back up again and know that one of those dogs, these dogs right now here at our school are about six, seven months old. And I always stand there and especially on, we have a, a day called Puppy Go Home, where at about nine weeks we hand the puppy over to the volunteer who's gonna help raise it. And it's kind of this like Oprah moment. You get a puppy, you get a puppy, you get a puppy in that moment every time. And I've been to several of them now. I look at those puppies and I'm like, God, puppy, in two years you're gonna change somebody's life. And so watching the journey of that dog, then it gets matched with the person. And that grounds me and fills me.

Pat:

Okay. Now I have to ask you a question that I know listeners are wanting to know, and you have to be honest here. Okay.

Alyssa:

Okay.

Pat:

How many dog selfies do you have on your phone right now?

Alyssa:

Pat. Hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds between these dogs. And I have four dogs at home.

Pat:

Of course you do.

Alyssa:

I'm living it on both ends. Yeah. Oh, that's, and two of my dogs at home are retired, Helping Paws Dogs. A brother and sister.

Pat:

So it's fair to say that your phone is jammed with a lot of pictures.

Alyssa:

So many <laugh>, so many pictures. My kids will go through it and they're just like, there's no pictures of us, mom. It's all you and the dogs.

Pat:

Well, there you have it.

Alyssa:

It's true. And any given time, the first picture in my role is a A dog.

Pat:

Yeah. Okay. Now that we have that out in the open,

Alyssa:

It's a truth. It's a truth. I'll admit it.

Pat:

Alright, now, Helping Paws has a huge mission changing lives through dogs. But let's start simple. What's the first thing people need to understand about what Helping Paws does? What do you guys do?

Alyssa:

That's a good question. It's a good place to start. So, Helping Paws breeds trains and places service dogs for people with physical disabilities, veterans and first responders with PTSD and facility dogs such as courthouse dogs, school dogs. Um, we have a dog at a traumatic brain injury rehabilitation center. So those dogs are helping groups of people. And then our physical disabilities and veteran and first responder dogs are working with one-on-one with their person. So that's what we do. We have our own breeding program. We just went through a very big shift in how we work and train with our dogs. There was a study that came out of Duke University about a year ago that says, just like our children, by the time a child is five 90% of their brain has developed. And now we know by the time a puppy is five months old, 90% of their brain is developed.

Alyssa:

We just opened in November a puppy enrichment center, which is attached to our current facility. And it looks like a preschool that any kid would go to. There's bouncy things and ball pits and all kinds of things, all kinds of sensory things. And now we start, our puppies are born at a volunteer's home called a caretaker home. They have the dog in their house, and they usually do two litters of puppies for us. But now we have a whole team that goes in there and on. We start training the dog on day three. So, we're touching their paws, we're putting scents under their noses. We're taking them away from their litter mates maybe for two minutes a day and then putting them back. And then as they get older, five minutes, 10 minutes, they're going on short car rides. We have a lot of problems with dogs that get car sick.

Alyssa:

They're learning to sleep in a kennel a little bit by themselves and then back with their litter mates. So, we're starting to desensitize them from some of the things that were causing temperament issues in our dogs. And our hope is that being intentional will at the beginning, will end up helping us place more dogs. Not all dogs graduate. Our numbers about 60% right now, but our goal is to get to 70 and 80% of our dogs graduating. And so this early intervention is kind of where we're very much focused. After the dog is at the caretaker home, it goes to the volunteer dog trainer. And in our program, you can either help train a dog, come here once a week with that dog and help train the dog with our professional staff, or you can be a host home. And we have our new doggy Uber that comes and picks up all the dogs.

Alyssa:

Just like if you sent your kid off to preschool, picks up all the dogs, brings them to the Blue Coat Academy, and then drives them back home at the end of the day. And those dogs are working with professional trainers. And then at about two, two and a half, depending on the maturity of the dog, we do what we call pre matching. And we bring in clients off of our wait list. And it's not just the, if you're number one, you don't get the next dog. It really has, they look at the dog and their skills and they look at the people on the wait list and they start bringing them in. And it's like speed dating. Bring in one person and you bring in three or four dogs and they work with the per person. I can tell you, 'cause I've seen it time and time and time again, the dog picks the person I've seen, um, a dog do nothing for the guy, you know, or girl with the, you know, meeting the dog. And then the third dog comes out and does everything that person wants it to do and then gives it a big hug at the end. And then after that, we match the dogs and we bring in those people and we teach the person everything the dog knows. And then we have a full after placement team that goes and makes sure that it's working and we stay in touch with the dog and the person through the life of the dog.

Pat:

Wow. That sounds very lovingly intentional from start and throughout. I don't say start to finish because it's obvious you keep that relationship going.

Alyssa:

Yeah. You know, we're unusual in that way. A lot of agencies that train service dogs have kind of gone to more of a kennel model where they have kennels and at their training facility and they can train more dogs. And so, you know, they're able to place more dogs quickly. And that's amazing because people really need these dogs. But we're comfortable slowing down the process 'cause we believe dogs living in people's homes end up to be a more socialized and confident dog.

Pat:

Now, I was reading somewhere you work with a lot of volunteers. I think I saw a couple hundred a year. What keeps people coming back and what makes them stay?

Alyssa:

It's about 175 a year. Well, you know, we have a proverb over here that says, come for the dogs and stay for the people. So people come here because they really want to work and help train a service dog. It's like maybe been a dream of theirs or they just love the whole concept of it. But then you start to meet the other people training dogs and the people getting the dogs. And people really fall in love with what this program does. We've had people train 12 dogs for us, 14 dogs for us. They just take a new dog every two years. And so I think it's a, it's about both having that opportunity. It's a very, very hands-on volunteer opportunity that we're giving people. It's, and it's long term, you know, you have this dog in your house for over two years usually. So they're very, very committed.

Alyssa:

And I think our volunteers do get to meet the person that's getting the dog. And when they have that meeting in their, and they see that this person has not been able to leave their house in the past year because of not being able to go into a public space or, because if I leave my house and I drop my keys, I'm not gonna get, be able to get into the car. I'm now stuck in the hallway of my apartment building until someone comes by. So there's this fear of even just leaving your home and now we're giving them back that lifeline back. And gosh, I mean, giving someone back their life and their independence and their dignity, I think that's what keeps people involved is the ability to be able to do that for someone.

Pat:

Now I see that Helping Paws works exclusively with Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers. Now for those folks who are not dog people, what makes these breeds so well suited for this kind of work? But before you answer, when I moved to Minnesota years ago, I was struck by the number of golden retrievers. And if Minnesota had a state dog, it would be Golden Retrievers.

Alyssa:

That's right Pat. I think that's right.

Pat:

Okay.

Alyssa:

They're everywhere.

Pat:

So now back to the question.

Alyssa:

It's right a family dog.

Alyssa:

So Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers that they have three traits that we really know are important in training a great service dog. Number one is they retrieve, we need dogs that retrieve items, right? Keys, credit cards, pill bottles, your remote control, the spoon you dropped while you were cooking, and they're willing to retrieve. They also work really well for treats. And so, um, we use positive reinforcement training, which means we use a treat-based approach. So, we call that when the dog does the cue we want them to do, they learn over 80 cues by the time they graduate. When we want them to do that cue, they get a treat and we call that a tip because they're working for that money. They love getting rewarded in treats and they learn very quickly that doing this equals getting that treat very quickly.

Alyssa:

Little, little, little puppies, Goldens, and Labs can learn that pretty quickly. The third thing, which people might not know, and if you are a golden and lab person out there and you love your Goldens and Labs with all your hearts, which most golden and lab people do, Goldens and Labs are able to transfer affection more than other breeds. So, after two and a half years of being with their foster family, it is much harder on the human for that dog to leave the home and go work for somebody else than it is for the dog. 'cause whoever's gonna feed and treat that dog next, that's who they're gonna follow. And so you'll see at our graduation, we have a graduation once a year where we bring all the new teams together and the dog has not seen their foster family for that year. And they both come up on stage and the, um, graduate, we call it a graduate team, the person who got the dog and the dog come up on stage and the foster meets them in the middle.

Alyssa:

And that little Lab, or Golden wiggles their little Lab and Golden behind as fast as they can and gives a hug to their foster, but then immediately turns and looks back at the person they're working for, saying, what do you want me to do next? And so I have my labs, but I also have a German Shepherd puppy mix at home. And, you know, a German Shepherd being raised to be a police dog or a SWAT dog, they're only gonna work for one person. That person has to be the handler from training to the end of service because the loyalty that is inbred in a German Shepherd or a dog like that, they couldn't do that. They could not be trained by someone and then have to go do that for somebody else. But Goldens and Labs can.

Pat:

Now is there a difference between guide dogs and service dogs?

Alyssa:

Guide Dogs are a service dog. So we're accredited by Assistance Dogs International, which is something we're really very proud of. There are only four organizations in Minnesota that are providing service dogs that are accredited by this organization. So assistance dogs and service dogs are kind of, that word is interchangeable.

Alyssa:

But dogs that are providing a service, whether it is working with someone with a mobility issue or a guide dog, you know, a medical dog or a police dog are all service dogs. They're providing a service. And then our facility dogs are kind of more seen as assistance dogs. They're providing a service for many, they are trained. So it's really these umbrella terms. So a guide dog is a service dog, and they're being trained by a service dog agency.

Pat:

What do you think that the public or people misunderstand about service dogs or about people who need them?

Alyssa:

Well, you know, that's a real issue here in Minnesota right now is we have very lenient laws on who's the service dog and what's service dog. And so I think there is some misguided information on a therapy dog or an emotion support dog. It's not a service dog. And so they do not go through the same training or public access training that service dogs do. And so why I totally believe, as I spoke earlier about, you know, what a dog can do for the heart, and I think it's really important. We can't get those confused. We can't get what a service dog does for someone to be able to enter into a public situation versus an emotional support dog that is by no means, you know, not doing something for that person. But it's not, it's not a trained service dog. And so we do have problems here in Minnesota as well as other states about what dogs can come into, you know, your local grocery store or you know, a restaurant or any of those things.

Alyssa:

Service dogs are protected by the American Disabilities Act and emotional support dogs are not. That's a very big difference. So right now, it's Assistance Dogs International Week, and if you go on our, our Facebook page, our, we've been posting about the difference between service dogs and emotional support dogs and all of that. And so I think that's a little bit misconstrued. Unfortunately, you can go on to Amazon right now and for 24 bucks you can buy a, an assistance dog jacket and put it on your dog. And then that causes problems. You know, if one of those dogs is unruly or one of those dogs even snips at one of an assistance dog, and now that dog, the service dog is afraid to go back in public, we just kind of ruin that for that person. Uh, you know, the two and a half years of training just got unraveled and now this person might not be able to go back in public. 'cause now their dog has learned a behavior that we didn't train for and has now had to, you know, deal with a reactive dog in their, in their way. I think it's complicated, but I think it's just a lot about education. And so I think that that's the biggest thing, you know, for people to understand what's a service dog and what's an emotional support dog and where the differences are.

Pat:

Is there some kind of badge or tag or marking that says trained service dog or something to put on their, you know, their collars that would give them like a legitimacy if they're boarding a plane or going into a restaurant?

Alyssa:

Um, not yet. That is something that we hopefully are, you know, will work on in the future that, um, it's really important to Helping Paws. Like I said, you can buy a service dog jacket or assistance dog jacket right online. So there's nothing differentiating a Helping Paws service dog going into a store next to someone who bought the jacket online that they look very similar- ours say, Helping Paws on them. So you can tell the difference that the ones that are certified and have passed tests will probably say the name of the agency that train that doc. So that's really what to look for right now. But there's not yet a, a badge that like a clerk or someone at a store can easily go Yes, no, no. Yes, yes. But that is something that I think is gonna, will be very valuable and something we would like to work on.

Pat:

Is the need for your service dogs growing?

Alyssa:

Yes. We have about a three year wait list, and that's for many reasons. One for our veterans and first responders with PTSD. The stigma of mental health is thank goodness lowering. And so some of our, our veterans and first responders are more willing to say, okay, a service dog would actually really help me get my life back. We have an aging population, so needs for people with physical disabilities are growing. And then just the amount of success we're having with facility dogs in our courthouses in our schools has upped that list significantly as well.

Pat:

I'm curious, if someone was in need of a service dog, what do they have to pay? Like how do they pay for this and is a dog bears once that happens?

Alyssa:

So the beautiful thing about our organization, uh, is we don't charge for that dog. That dog is worth about $40,000 by the time we're done training it between the amount of training, food, veterinary care, all of the things that go into it, the, you know, the trainers here, it's a hundred dollars application fee and then a $300 materials fee that even if you can't pay that, we don't charge for that. You know, that just sends you home with a bag of food and a bowl and a leash and your color and your pack. You could go online and find your loved one, a service dog where you could pay 40, $50,000 and bring your, your loved one in and get trained with that service dog and walk out with your service dog and it's yours. We believe in the gift of the service dog, and we have incredible donors and corporate sponsors and foundations that help us make that happen. That is - it's a never-ending battle to raise those funds each and every year, but we are fully committed to never charging for one of these life changing dogs.

Pat:

Okay. I'm gonna ask you a really tough question now.

Alyssa:

Okay.

Pat:

I know you have a gazillion stories, but can you share a story a moment that just stopped you in your tracks and reminded you why this work matters?

Alyssa:

So the minute you said that, I, the story popped into my head and it is one of many, many, many, but when we're writing grants, you know, I often try to get, um, testimonials from our program staff, people who have received a dog before. The person gets a dog. We do an intake. What's your life like? How independent do you feel? Do you leave your house? And then six months later we go back out and ask the same questions to see how their life has changed with the service dog. So I was reading through those, hoping to get some, you know, a bite out of their somewhere. And we matched a dog, um, about a year ago with a a 15-year-old young girl. And I might cry, she and I cry every time I tell this story, I'm reading it. And her comment was, for the first time in my life, my mom doesn't have to open a door for me. I can do it by myself with my service dog. And so what that tells me is we don't truly understand what independence means for somebody or not having independence, how horrible that must feel to not open your own bedroom door. But now she can and she can leave her own room and she gets in her wheelchair and her dog tugs that door open and out they walk together and she got her dignity back.

Alyssa:

That's, yeah. So that's one of a hundred.

Pat:

I'm sure you could, you have so many stories like that. Yeah. And that's what makes your work and your organization so spectacular. So thank you. If people listening wanna get involved, what's one thing they can do that would help or make a difference?

Alyssa:

So I always say to make Helping Paws happen, we need doers and givers. So you can be a doer or a giver and you can go to helping paws.org and you can volunteer, you can go to helping paws.org and you can donate, you can go to helping paws.org and do both. But it takes doers and givers to make this happen and whatever inspires you. You know, some people are like, I'm allergic to dogs, but goodness, I believe in this work and I'm gonna make a donation. And some people say, I can't make a financial contribution, but I certainly can open my door in my heart and have a dog live at my house. In my mind and in my heart, doers and givers to this organization are of equal value. Yeah. And so come be a doer or giver at Helping Paws.

Pat:

Whoa. With that said, Alyssa, thank you for walking us into the world of Helping Paws. This work goes way beyond training dogs. And as you say, it's about freedom, connection, dignity, and showing up. Thanks for saying yes and for letting us see the heart behind it. Thank you so much.

Alyssa:

Thank you, Pat. This was wonderful. I appreciate it.

Pat:

And listeners, thank you for joining us today and see you next time. Take care.

 

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