PUPPY LOVE: Monique Melton raises Canine Companions puppies that go on to serve those in need

Monique Melton is an Administrative Manager for Madison City’s Public Works department. Her service-dogs-in-training make for unusual and cuddly co-workers.

In addition to serving the city’s Public Works department, Melton is a Puppy Raiser for Canine Companions, a non-profit company that trains and provides service dogs to those in need.

Melton first became associated with Canine Companions by donating money as a Christmas present for her parents. Her background in dog training later led her to further her involvement with the organization.

As a teenager, Melton helped her father raise and train show dogs, and when she married a duck hunter, helped train bird dogs. Later in life, Melton “decided it was time to train dogs for something that meant something to me” and thus, entered Canine Companions.

Melton has worked with Canine Companions for six years now. She started in January of 2019, when she applied to be a volunteer Puppy Raiser. The application process involved two online applications, a phone interview, and a home inspection.

She has since raised three puppies, and she is currently raising her fourth and fifth. Melton receives the puppies from Canine Companions at eight weeks old, and each puppy stays with Melton for a total of eighteen months.

During those eighteen months, she has a responsibility to socialize the dogs, train them in basic skills, and teach them about 35 different commands. Melton also trains her pups to follow certain rules outlined by Canine Companions, such as, no licking, jumping, or chewing and no barking unless on command. The special rules prepare the dogs to meet a high standard as working dogs but may be relaxed depending on their recipient’s preferences.

Above all the responsibilities, Melton says, “The biggest thing is to get them comfortable in as many situations as you can possibly think of.”

To help socialize the dogs, Melton takes her pups to work at the Public Works department every day.

The dogs’ presence is not only beneficial for the dogs but also for the people who encounter them, including Melton’s co-workers.

“I can’t tell you how much it improves the morale around the office,” said Melton. “They consider my dogs as Public Works dogs. They’re not just Monique’s. They’re everybody’s.”

She also takes them out and about around town to the grocery store, the library, and restaurants. She’s even taken them to Tate’s Farm, Trash Pandas baseball games, and children’s workshops at Home Depot.

After eighteenth months of puppy training, Melton sends them off to ‘college’ with Canine Companions.

“I like to describe it as we have them K-12, and then they go off to college,” described Melton.

Once in ‘college’, the dogs are given time to acclimate to their new environment and are assessed for the area best fit for them to work in. Canine Companions trains dogs for four different areas. They train hearing dogs, facility dogs, dogs for individuals with disabilities and for veterans with PTSD.

“They want to match the dog with the skills that the dog enjoys doing,” explained Melton. “For example, one of my dogs, he loved every little sound he heard. He got excited and he wanted to come talk to me about it, and he’s now a hearing dog, which is perfect for him.”

Canine Companions ‘college’ lasts three months, and at the end of the three months, the dogs are matched to a recipient and sent to their new home for two more weeks of training with their recipient. Once the two weeks are completed successfully, the dogs and their recipients celebrate with a graduation ceremony.

“The recipients have a little speech, usually by one person that’s got a dog and the rest of them will be up there with them, but usually one person speaks for the entire group, and they tell you how much it means to them. And I promise you everybody in the room is in tears,” said Melton. “It’s amazing that these dogs can change these people’s lives so much.”

The trained dogs are given to their recipients at no cost, a factor that makes Canine Companions stand out from other service dog training organizations and one of the things Melton loves about the organization. Canine Companions also stays in touch with recipients and offers lifetime support for the recipient and their service dog.

Not every puppy, however, makes it to graduation. In fact, Melton’s third puppy was released from ‘college’ and now lives with Melton permanently. Her name is Genevieve but she’s also known as “the Diva”.

“My third dog was released from the program and we pretty much knew it from the get-go. She would go through all of her commands. She’s a well-behaved dog, but she doesn’t want to work,” said Melton. “She’s like, ‘Ugh, I’m not meant to work, people!’”

Now, Genevieve enjoys a life of relaxation with Melton and enjoys spending time on the lake with Melton’s father.

Canine Companions use two breeds of dogs in particular as service dogs. They train Labrador retrievers and golden retrievers or mixes of the two.

Melton explained that these breeds’ natural characteristics and dispositions make them especially good service dogs, “They chose these two breeds, the labs because they have a very strong work ethic – they really enjoy working, can be kind of obsessed with a particular job – and goldens because they’re the most goofy, loving breed out there.”

Melton’s current puppies are mixes of breeds. Their names are Cordie and Lane. Cordie is Melton’s fifth Canine Companions puppy and the newest arrival. According to Melton, Cordie is “tenacious”, “smart”, and “not fearful of anything.”

Lane is Melton’s fifth puppy and is heading off to ‘college’ this February. Melton describes Lane as “cuddly” and “a droopy-eyed lover.” “That’s his strong suit. He loves people,” she said. With his love for people, she sees him possibly working as a facility dog one day.

Lane is also a movie star.

He was recently included along with his sibling, Luma, who lives with another Canine Companions Puppy Raiser in North Alabama, in a Netflix documentary, Inside the Mind of a Dog. The documentary explores the cognitive abilities of dogs and highlights the training process of Canine Companions dogs.

The documentary showcases what Melton already knows from her years of puppy raising: the intelligence and work ethic of service dogs, the work that goes into training them, and the difference they make in people’s lives.

“There are so many videos out there of recipients explaining what this dog does and what this dog means to them. When you see a ten-year-old little girl with neuropathy problems and just didn’t have the will to fight and she got her dog and she started brushing her dog and now she can move her hands and she can brush her own hair, I mean it’ll bring tears to your eyes,” said Melton. “These dogs do awesome work.”

Puppy Raisers like Melton put a lot of time, energy, and resources into laying a foundation in the first year and a half of a dog’s life that will help them go on to provide life-changing assistance to those in need, and according to Melton, it’s all worth it.

“I don’t think that I can put into words how rewarding this work is. It’s probably at least once a week we get, I don’t know how you do it,’” said Melton.