Family raises service dog for daughter with epilepsy

The Smolin family’s golden retriever puppy, Trixie, is much more than a family pet. Their goal is that one day Trixie can help their daughter live a safe, independent life.

Desiree Smolin said her 14-year-old daughter, Rachel, has epilepsy. After years of treatment, Rachel’s doctor said her condition was severe enough to write her a prescription for a service dog.

Service dogs can be trained for a variety of tasks, including retrieving a person or medication to help with a seizure, stimulating their handler to end the seizure and keeping them safe while the seizure is happening. Desiree Smolin said they are also working with Trixie on scent identification, in hopes that the dog will be able to recognize Rachel’s physical changes before a seizure happens.

After researching several national organizations that did not train the right type of service dogs or had a multi-year waiting list, Desiree Smolin said they found Roverchase in Pelham. The owner of Roverchase, Abigail Witthauer, has an ongoing service dog training program and has a golden retriever of her own, McCallen, due to a seizure disorder.

While she has been training a handful of dogs from area breeders for several years with the help of trainers, 2018 marked two firsts for Witthauer’s program: the first litter of puppies bred and raised in-house, and the first class of “puppy raisers,” which are families who have committed to help guide this litter as they grow into successful service animals.

Trixie is part of this first litter, and the Smolins are among the puppy raisers going through the 16-month process. While most puppy raisers will eventually give their dogs to their future handlers, Trixie will become Rachel’s constant companion when she graduates from training.

“I think it’s been amazing to me just how much work they put into it,” Desiree Smolin said.

Witthauer said she has always been “singularly focused” on working with dogs. She began showing dogs as a child and raised two service dogs while living in her college dorm, “like a crazy person.”

“Raising a dog in the dorms was a really great experience. It’s the perfect environment to raise a service dog. It’s just so social and your schedule is great to raise a puppy,” Witthauer said, though she noted it’s “not for the faint of heart.”

Witthauer moved to Birmingham in 2008 and immediately started the business that would become Roverchase, which moved to its permanent location in Pelham five years ago. For several years, Witthauer and Roverchase trainers have raised and developed about six to eight service dogs a year, but she said breeding her own puppies has always been a goal, so she could direct their development from the first day.

This litter, in fact, was born in Witthauer’s living room, and they lived with her for eight weeks before going to the puppy raisers’ homes.

Witthauer said positive reinforcement as the puppies grow and learn new experiences is a critical part of developing them into service companions.

“Our goal is that they just have really excellent experiences with everything that they do,” Witthauer said.

Desiree Smolin said training a puppy from a young age can be challenging, but Witthauer and the Roverchase staff provide a lot of support and exact instructions for what they need to do at each phase of Trixie’s growth.

“Puppies are like children, they have their quirks. But they’re helping you work through every little problem,” she said.

“Everything is well thought out because they’re looking ahead to the adult dog and what skills that the dog needs.”

Since the puppies are all from the same litter, Desiree Smolin said she and the other families raising them often find they have the same issues arise.

“I just think there’s a community, and we all tend to have similar problems,” she said.

In addition to caring for the puppies until they are at least 16 months old, all of the families working with Roverchase commit to keeping up their basic obedience training and “manners,” Witthauer said, as well as taking them out in public to get used to the distractions of places like grocery stores and movie theaters.

“A good puppy raiser just has a really lovely, active lifestyle and household,” Witthauer said.

The puppies come to class at least three times a week, where they learn everything from identifying smells to opening doors or turning on lights. For any service dog, one of the hardest parts to learn is to keep focused on their handler even when other dogs, people or sights and smells are vying for their attention.

Around the age of six to eight months, Witthauer said the puppies’ talents begin to show and they can determine what type of service will best suit them. As a seizure support dog, Trixie has to have excellent “nosework” in identifying scents, as well as understanding what to do in situations where Rachel may be incapacitated.

Other dogs’ skills may suit them to support handlers with hearing loss, mobility issues or post-traumatic stress disorder, Witthauer said.

Most of Trixie’s siblings will begin to be placed in their permanent homes at around 16 to 18 months old. Witthauer said they receive about 30 applications a year from people in need of a service dog, and they screen those applicants to find the ones who will be the best match for the skills these dogs can offer.

It’s an “incredibly bittersweet, heartbreaking” time for most of the puppy raisers, who have to give up a dog that has been part of their family for nearly two years. Witthauer said it helps, however, that they get to meet the new owners.

“They get to know the impact that that puppy has on that person’s life,” she said.

“You won’t experience anything like gifting a dog to a person that will utterly and completely change their life.”

In Trixie’s case, however, she will get to stay in the Smolins’ home and transition into a full-time service dog.

Witthauer said her goal is to eventually place 30 service dogs with handlers each year and to grow their nonprofit arm, the Roverchase Foundation, to the extent that “we don’t turn anyone away for financial need.” It takes $10,000-$15,000 to raise and train a single service dog.

This has been a decade-long passion project, Witthauer said, and to “see it all of a sudden blossom this year has been an exhausting and emotional journey.”

“There are a lot of kids who really, really need service dogs,” Desiree Smolin said.

Learn more about Roverchase’s service dog training program at roverchase.com.