The Dog House will have their paws full this semester with two new puppies, Regis and Loki.

The brain child of Lauren Holtz ’15, the Dog House was proposed to Dickinson’s Idea Fund in 2013 as a service organization dedicated to ‘raising service puppies to assist children with social/emotional disabilities or serious medical conditions.’

The Dog House received its first puppy, Dino, in the spring of 2013. After receiving a month and a half of training by student volunteers and faculty, the puppy was given to a twelve-year-old autistic boy as a therapy pet. The two were paired together through the North Star Foundation, a non-profit organization.

After this initial success, the Dog House applied for two more puppies to train during the Fall 2013 semester.

“This is the time to fulfill everything we talked about,” said Carley Zarzeka ’15, member of the Dog House.

The dogs are brothers of the same litter and will stay on campus for the Fall 2013 semester in order to learn their roles as service puppies. Though the puppies, golden retrievers, are bred to be very calm and quiet animals, Regis and Loki will still require training before they are ready to assist a child with autism.

Their training requires socialization in regular settings and learning how to deal with people, such as how to act on a walk and in the classroom. The service dogs will accompany the children everywhere they go and it is the Dog House’s responsibility to make sure the dogs are prepared for their jobs.

“One of the most challenging things will be keeping the balance between being a dog mother and staying on top of the schoolwork,” said Holtz. Since the dogs are going through specialized fitting by Dickinson students, it is only fitting that they are treated as students of their profession as well.

The Pack, or student volunteers who work at the Dog House, spent long hours during the 2013 Spring semester and over the summer to procure a home and training facility in which the puppies can live during their college stay. Currently the new house on 350 W North St. has the two new puppies and the major handlers living inside: Justin McCarthy ’15,, Eller Mallchok ’15 and Holtz.

“We’re working on getting them access to regular buildings now. After that we have to get permission from individual building managers,” said McCarthy.

In order to be a part of the community, the Pack is organizing an Open House on Oct. 5 at their new location, 350 W North St, to thank all those who were and will be involved.

The Dog House also plans to organize an “Indogeration” to formally welcome the puppies to the school. The ceremony’s date has yet to be announced.

More information, along with pictures of the puppies playing with student volunteers, can be found on the group’s home page at Dickinson College Dog House on Facebook or on their instagram account.