Camp Oakland & K9 Stray Rescue League

Youth trainers are paired with hard-to-adopt shelter dogs for a 10-week program.

Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:30-5:30

Camp Oakland provides children a safe environment to receive counseling, therapy, and support. Abused and troubled youth come to CO through referrals from the Department of Health and Human Services and the juvenile justice program.

Each session is split into two one-hour sessions. For 1 hour, youth trainers teach dogs life skills and basic obedience to make them more adoptable using positive reinforcement training methods. While the other hour is dedicated to classroom time learning about body language, force-free training, dogfighting, puppy mills, shelters, and more.

Trainer E and Shelter Dog Morgan Success Story –  

When shelter dog, Morgan, first arrived to the program on his first day, the only way he could be described was “DOOFY.”  He was clutzy, clumsy, running into walls, about 20 pounds overweight, had a huge head, tripped over his own feet. He had ZERO obedience skills, zero boundaries, and it was common for his huge head to bonk his trainer’s head or nose. He did not know how to play with a toy, he was mouthy, and that is not even close to the complete list of issues. We truly did not know if we were going to be able to keep him in the program.  

BUT - one student trainer decided THIS was the challenge that he needed. This student was not quite succeeding in his own program and stated that he “saw a lot of himself in this dog” and that “Maybe we can help each other?” as he picked Morgan as his first choice to work with in program. 

After a LOT of discussion with the shelter director and staff, the facilitators and transport driver, we decided to give it a trial run! And oh my, are we glad we did! Morgan ended up going through 2 ½ sessions with us. (The pandemic restrictions disrupted programming, but we managed to piece together the 2 ½ programs.)  

Step by step, little by little, Morgan began to learn.  It was not without frustration, and phrases like “I can’t do this, he’s not listening” were heard often from his trainer. The facilitators literally had to take a step back themselves and figure out how to break simple training down into even smaller successes. Progress was made by helping Trainer E learn that successes sometimes are quite small, you can’t compare Morgan’s story to other dogs progress, and that patience is something that is learned in small doses!  

 Throughout our time in the classroom, we saw small changes in Trainer E as well. The defensive young man always had an excuse for his actions and rarely showed emotion. However, Trainer E reacted to a dog fighting education video that was shown with inconsolable emotion, showing empathy towards the animals and actually verbalized his anger that a human could do such harm. However, despite the power of that moment, it wasn’t actually the golden moment - that moment came from two other students in the classroom who were so concerned about their peer that they went to him to console him! They patted him on the back, asked him if he was ok, and told them their feelings too! Moments like this cannot be taught, but experienced. Building empathy is a goal we strive for in Teachers Pet: Dogs and Kids Learning Together and CFY and we were blessed to witness it first hand that day!