As an undergraduate, Mary Beth Kopechek didn't just study animal sciences and disability studies. She lived the topics, raising companion dogs for the disabled throughout her college career.
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Mary Beth Kopechek:
Shake. Yeah, Jenny! Speak. Yeah!
As long as I can remember I've been interesting in dogs. Any way to get a dog. I read all the books--literally, every book our library had on dogs and then anything related to it.
And then one of the things I came across was the puppy raising program, so I actually applied to two organizations and got accepted and ended up getting my puppy, first puppy in October of 2001 when I was 15 and a half.
My job is to expose the dog to everything and teach them that nothing--you know, everything that goes on around us and nothing is worth reacting to. If the dog doesn't react, that's the goal.
We realize as puppy raisers that we can't expose them to everything but if we can teach them how to react appropriately to new things that they see here and now, that usually sets them up to be successful.
We start out kind of gradually. I usually take them to the library: quiet, quick, you can just run in and run back out. I take them for a lot of car rides so they get used to traveling and then we slowly build up to the point that they can come to, you know, college campus.
I don't even think anything about it anymore, but I realize that there are so many people every day that I encounter that I've never met before, so there's a lot of stares and people kind ofwonder what's wrong with me.
All the bus drivers know who we are by now. It's been a couple years, so they're pretty familiar with us.
I'm an animal sciences major and I'm minoring in disability studies, which, really, the two have nothing to do with each other for most people. But with what I do it goes together really well.The animal sciences major requires a minor. The minor exposes me to issues with disabilities and different kinds of disabilities and that sort of thing.
OSU has been very cooperative with letting me puppy raise and even allowing me to bring the dogs to class.
They're a good destresser for me with college, having a dog. Even just yesterday, I was working on papers for a couple of hours and got to the point where I just needed a break so we went out in our yard and played ball.
The people that I've been able to help through that is just huge. The reward is just indescribable.
As long as Mary Beth Kopechek can remember, she's had an insatiable curiosity about dogs.
"I read all the books--literally, every book our library had on dogs," she said. At 12, she found out that people could raise puppies for the disabled. "My parents just said, 'You're a little young for this. Just wait a few years.'"
She did--and at 15, she got a puppy from Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a Delaware, Ohio, not-for-profit organization that places highly-trained assistance dogs with children and adults with disabilities other than blindness.
Kopechek graduated from Ohio State in June with a degree in animal sciences and will return in January for her Master's. Throughout her college career, she raised puppies. Jen, a black lab she finished raising this year, was the eighth dog she raised. "She's done really well handling college life," Kopechek says.
"It's become kind of an addiction," she says. "The more I do it the more I learn."
Kopechek majored in animal sciences and minored in disability studies--a rare combination that fit her interests perfectly, she says. She's also interned and worked part-time at CCI, where she hopes to someday be an instructor.
“The people that I've been able to help through that is just huge. The reward is just indescribable.”
—Mary Beth Kopechek
"The two have nothing to do with each other for most people. But with what I do it goes together really well," she says. "I love working with people with disabilities and I also love working with dogs."
Puppies come to Kopechek as young as eight weeks. For the next year or so, it's her job to socialize them and teach them basic commands such as sit and stay.
"There is no end to the learning of this," Kopechek says. Some puppies are tougher to train than others, she says. "You never know what you're going to be in for."
When Kopechek is finished with a puppy, the dog goes to CCI for advanced training. For the next six to nine months, the dog are rigorously trained and screened "to see if they truly have what it takes to become a CCI Assistance Dog," according to the organization's web site.
Giving up a dog is the hard part, Kopechek says.
"People ask how do you do it. Our usual answer is, with a big box of Kleenex."
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