Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 31, 1994 TAG: 9405310085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN TREMBLAY THE FREE LANCE-STAR
DATELINE: STAFFORD (AP) LENGTH: Medium
Lately she's also been training dogs to be the arms and legs, eyes and ears for the disabled.
The 42-year-old Aquia Harbour resident has been a volunteer for two national nonprofit organizations, Canine Companions for Independence and National Capital Top Dog, for about four years.
Nieder spends 12 to 16 months training a dog, working up to 10 hours a week. The dogs get another eight months of training geared toward the kind of work they'll be doing, such as alerting a deaf owner when the doorbell rings or turning off a light switch for a quadriplegic.
Healthy, smart dogs are in short supply, as are volunteer trainers, she said. People often wait five years to get a trained dog.
Nieder said she's quick to encourage people to give their time or their money to help train the dogs. "Sometimes I feel like a walking billboard," she said.
There are 43 million Americans with disabilities but there are only about 10,000 dogs working with the disabled, she said.
Top Dog works with disabled people who already have dogs; CCI trains dogs and then sells them each for $125, far below the $10,000 to $12,000 Nieder said it costs to train a dog. The organization relies on donations to make up the difference, she said.
Nieder, who manages a Stafford County kennel and runs obedience classes for dogs, has been around animals for most of her life. When she was 12, growing up in Akron, Ohio, her neighbor, a retired dog trainer for the Army, showed her how smart some dogs can be.
Nieder has always been partial to German shepherds. She got her first dog 22 years ago, about a year after she married her high school sweetheart, Jeff Nieder.
In March, one of Nieder's trainees, a shepherd named Tevin, went to live with a 5-year-old blind boy in Damascus, Md.
Now Dougie Strobel can walk to the school bus without his mother's help, or run across the street for a game of basketball with his buddies.
The dog "has kept [Dougie's] independence while making sure he's got some safety," said his mother, Cindy Strobel.
Training begins when a puppy is 8 weeks old, and the first four months focus on house manners.
"You don't want to break their spirit. If you start training too young, they have a tendency to break down, be resentful," Nieder said.
She exposes the puppy to as many people as possible, so he'll be able to switch masters easily when the time comes.
She gets the dog used to different surfaces - gravel, sand, metal grates, snow and sawdust. She takes the dog on elevators and escalators, to train stations and county fairs.
"It's imperative that you take them every place you possibly can so they won't spook . . . because somebody's life is depending upon them."
Three times a week, Nieder takes Whisper, a 16-month-old golden retriever, to a shopping center. She teaches the dog to follow her, not the cart, in a grocery store, to give money to a cashier and to sit quietly under a table in a restaurant.
She keeps the dog clean, trimming her hair often and checking her paws, ears and eyes daily.
CCI and Top Dog don't require that the dogs be impeccably groomed, but Nieder thinks it's important. She realizes Whisper is setting an example. And she doesn't want to give merchants a reason not to allow the dog in a store.
"Most merchants . . . if you explain she's in training, they're usually understanding. I've never been turned down by anybody," Nieder said.
Training dogs can be time-consuming and frustrating, she said. After investing two years in training, there's no guarantee that the dog will pass muster. One dog she trained for CCI was rejected because he had hip problems.
It's usually difficult, after so many months together, to give the dogs up, Nieder said.
"But I realize I've given another person the freedom they never had before."
by CNB