Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS)
By Louise Chatterton Luchuk
June 29, 2009
BURNABY, BC // Pacific Assistance Dogs (PADS) raises and trains assistance dogs for people who are facing the daily challenges of life with a physical disability, or who are deaf or hard of hearing. PADS relies entirely on fundraising, grants, and donations; yet in the last five years, PADS staff size has doubled and its budget more than doubled. Not only that, but they have won numerous awards like the 2008 Donner Canadian Foundation Award for Excellence in the Delivery of Social Services, the 2008-09 Pricewaterhouse Cooper Canada Foundation Team Leadership Grant, Green Shields Foundation, McKenzie Financial Charitable Foundation and are a Charity Intelligence Canada recommended charity. All this information begs the question...how did they do it?
In 2003, just prior to the hiring of current executive director Bob Morrison, the board of directors made a decision that the organization needed to go the "next level" but the next level, explains Morrison, was not clearly defined at that time. So, the organization began a process to create a comprehensive plan covering every segment of their operations. In order for PADS to grow, they first needed to do was find a supply of puppies that had the predisposition, the health, and learning ethic to be good service dogs. That foundational part of the plan took several years but was essential. "Jackie Clark, our director of canine programs, spent a lot of time studying breeding and building relationships," states Morrison. "We’ve just found out that it appears we have an excellent breeding female being offered to us from a breeder in Nova Scotia. That didn’t just come as a phone call out of the blue but because of relationships we’ve been building for awhile. That dog may be capable of providing us four or five litters or upwards of 30 dogs. You have to build those relationships."
Next step: build the programming
The next step was to look at programming and PADS developed an early puppy training program that took eight week old pups and began to teach them some of the advance skills they would need like how to retrieve objects or respond to various commands. While the puppies can’t perform these functions capably because they don’t have the dexterity or maturity yet, they retain the skills so when they come into advanced training at 14-15 months they complete it much more quickly. Developing the early puppy training was more than just developing the education program. It meant training the people to train the puppies and also developing a whole host of volunteers to come in and play with the puppies, socialize, and nurture them like they would get in a home environment. In addition to building the staff and the volunteers, creating the early puppy education program required raising funds and building a new puppy training centre (which also houses PADS clients for the two weeks when they come in for matching with the dogs and intensive training).
PADS also looked at their complementary programs. For instance, they have always tried to place any dogs that didn’t make it through the mainstream program into a home with a child with a disability but, in the past, it was done on an ad hoc basis. A few years ago, however Morrison and Clark sat down and structured a program with an application and qualification process and called it their VIP (Very Important Pets) program. They have successfully packaged the VIP program and have a number of sponsors now. In other words, PADS turned something they were doing quietly in the background and turned it into something that generates funds and gives them exposure. Not only those, Clark points out there are non-financial benefits to the VIP program. "It helps with morale," she explains. "Everyone who is involved with PADS is in it to try and make the dog successful. So, when a dog doesn’t make it as an assistive dog, the donor through the puppy raiser through the staff and volunteer finds it discouraging. The VIP program allows us to take a dog that hasn’t qualified for our program, but in all other ways is a really great dog, and make a win out of the situation. We’re not left feeling that it was a failure or rejected dog. We now refer to them as career change dogs."
Building an organization also means building human resources
When Morrison started in 2004, there was himself, Clark and four others on staff. Now they have 17 staff (11.5 FTE) in two sites: Burnaby and Calgary. That requires more management and training of people and building up that infrastructure of human resources has probably been one of PAD’s biggest challenges and hasn’t gone as well as they would have hoped. Comments Morrison, "Part of the reason was probably our inability to recognize some of the risks as we went along like losing people through natural things like maternity leaves and extended sick leaves." The other challenge was the fact that solving the problem was not just about recruiting new staff because the industry is so small in Canada – particularly in Western Canada. The skills need to be taught through an apprenticeship program and it’s a very intensive process to train apprentices. It also ties up some of the time of the established trainers in order to train the new people so the risk is that productivity drops off during that growing period. "Pretty much any step you want to take to increase our training capacity takes about three to four years to get there. Whether it is increasing the number of breeding dogs so we have more puppies going through training or whether it’s increasing the training staff, it takes time," states Clark.
A snapshot of... |
Who: Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS)
Mandate/Mission: PADS exists to help individuals facing the challenges of a physical disability (other than blindness), by raising, training and placing life changing assistance dogs. We support these successfully matched teams throughout their working lives.
Location: Burnaby, BC – serving Canada’s 4 Western Provinces.
When established: 1987
Number of staff: 17 (FTE 11.5)
Number of volunteers: 300+
Budget: $700,000
Awards won: 2008 Donner Canadian Foundation Award for Excellence in the Delivery of Social Services; PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada Foundation 2008-2009 Team Leadership Grant
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So, back to the original question...how did PADS do it? PADS grew in staff size and budget by recognizing they needed to work backwards to make sure they were prepared for the future. For instance, knowing they would need 55 to 70 dogs in five years time, they created a plan to build up their breeding stock. Then they examined their program needs which informed their need for human resources and physical resources. Not only that but they sought out and listened to what others were doing well and incorporated these additional lessons into their plan. That is probably a big reason that after four years of being finalists in the Donner Canadian Foundation Awards, this past year they were winners. "After having attended the Awards and getting beaten by others, I’d start talking to those organizations and I’d realize why they won and we were the runner up," remarks Morrison. "I learned what they were doing differently and then we made changes." Perhaps now others will be looking to find out what PADS does differently and making changes to their own organizations as a result.
Louise Chatterton Luchuk provides research and resources for organizations that want to strategically move forward. She is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the regional, provincial and national levels of voluntary/non-profit organizations. You can reach Louise at info@luchuk.com.
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