My Nonprofit Reviews
Speakingout
Review for Canine Partners for Life, Cochranville, PA, USA
I have been involved with Canine Partners for Life for several years. I have personally witnessed abusive training practices as well as severe misinformation being presented by the trainers during Team Training. I witnessed the Executive Director, Darlene Sullivan, use her personal service dog to demonstrate "how to give a proper correction" --she grabbed her dog's face and yelled at her --the dog was shaking with her tail tucked --she had done nothing wrong and would stand and shake when called for any subsequent demonstrations.
I witnessed the Executive Director lift a dog off the ground by her prong collar (all 4 paws) for eating
a muffin off of a chair. Clients were advised to harshly correct a growling dog by yanking on the prong collar and/or grabbing the dog's face and yelling. That is a good way to get bitten and just teaches the dog not to give a warning (growl), resulting in a higher risk of a bite without warning. Trainers told students to yank the prong collar if their dog would not retrieve --making training sessions stressful and causing several dogs to shut down.
Several dogs who barked and growled at other dogs/people/sounds (sound sensitivity/reactivity) were allowed to graduate. One dog who pooped on the train trip into Philadelphia (and subsequently had to wear a Thunder Shirt to calm him because he was so anxious) still was allowed to graduate --even though the dog was exhibiting severe stress signals when working in public. I saw another recipient's dog wearing a Thunder Shirt as well. A dog that has to wear a Thunder Shirt to function in public is not suited to be a service dog --the dog is stressed and anxious and it is cruel to make the dog work. Anyone with a basic knowledge of dog psychology and training would know how to read dogs' body language for signs of stress/agitation and would not choose to flood the dog (force it to work without taking steps for desensitization), which causes more problems and doesn't fix the underlying issues.
In a past graduating class, a dog developed seizures during Team Training and the team was still allowed to graduate and go home without knowing if medicine was effective or not.
Canine Partners for Life is not an organization I can in good conscience recommend to anyone. They use outdated and inhumane training methods and allow unsuitable dogs to graduate from their
program, which does not paint a good picture for other service dog teams and organizations.
More Feedback
How would you describe the help you got from this organization?
A little
How likely are you to recommend this organization to a friend?
No
How do you feel you were treated by this organization?
Badly
When was your last experience with this nonprofit?
2011
If someone has a question or concern about the Canine Partners for Life (CPL) program, we are more than willing to address it on an individual basis. In this instance, however, since the reviewer chooses not to use his/her real name, we do not know how or even if they have ever been associated with CPL, either as a program participant or as a volunteer. Therefore we do not know what this review is based on and are unable to respond directly to this individual. At CPL we take our commitment to our dogs and our program participants very seriously. We were one of the first organizations to be accredited by Assistance Dogs International (ADI), the worldwide governing body for service dog organizations. ADI has developed very strict criteria for the care and training of dogs in service programs, which is why being accredited by them is so important. CPL meets the ADI’s criteria and very often exceeds them. Thank you.
