Two-legged students and four-legged students alike at West Virginia University will benefit from a recent gift that will create a new learning space designed to help train service dogs.

A gift from the William F. and Lynn D. Gauss Foundation will allow both students and the dogs they are training to help people with disabilities hone their skills.

“This gift has provided resources for the equipment needed for the animal care and maintenance portion of our service dog training facility out at the Animal Science Farm,” said Matt Wilson, professor of animal and nutritional sciences and director of the WVU CARES Initiative in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design.

The improvements included stainless steel kennel runs, a grooming station, and a washer and dryer. The gift also funded an exercise area, including agility equipment and fencing.

Wilson leads WVU’s ROVER project, or “Returning our Veterans to Employment and Reintegration.” The project studies the impact of the use of service dogs in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The project is pursuing additional funds for other areas of research, making improvement of the training facilities an important priority.

“We’ve been able to take a dramatic step forward in our activities related to the service dog program, including supporting the needs of fulfilling the ROVER contract activities by having a greater capacity to train the dogs,” Wilson said. “We are finishing the two major surveys for the ROVER project and completing the pilot studies for the simulated work environment lab studies so that we can proceed with the full blown study this summer into fall.”

The facility will be dedicated as the Gauss Foundation Service Dog Kennel.

The WVU CARES Initiative is dedicated to education, research and outreach to improve the collective well-being among humans, animals and ecosystems in Appalachia. It emphasizes canine companions, agriculture, rehabilitation (of avian and canine species and humans), ecosystems and sustainability.

The Gauss Foundation’s gift was made through the WVU Foundation, the private nonprofit corporation that generates and provides support for West Virginia University. The Foundation is currently conducting A State of Minds: The Campaign for West Virginia’s University. The largest fundraising effort in the history of the University hopes to raise $1 billion by December 2017.

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CONTACT: David Welsh, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design
304.293.2394, David.Welsh@mail.wvu.edu

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