Photo by Erin Nelson.
Kelly Schaeffer, owner of FIDOS Facility Dogs in Hoover, sits in a wheelchair as she works on different commands with Indie, an 11-month-old standard poodle, and CJ, a 10-month-old standard poodle, as part of their training to become facility dogs within the community.
Many people know about service dogs, which are trained to help disabled people in a variety of ways, but not as many people are familiar with facility dogs.
A fairly new nonprofit based in Bluff Park is hoping to change that.
While service dogs are trained to do specific tasks for a specific person who is disabled, in order to help mitigate that person’s disability, a facility dog is trained to console and love anyone and everyone who visits a particular place.
Across the country, facility dogs are becoming more and more popular in places such as health care facilities and schools. Sometimes, they assist people as they go through physical therapy, providing companionship and motivation. They also often are used by counselors to help ease the tension for children or other people to help them open up and share about the issues they’re facing.
The Hoover Public Library recently welcomed a facility dog named Libby, who is there to help children become better at reading by sitting with the children and letting them read to her. Library Director Amanda Borden said she also hopes Libby will help make the library a more inviting place for everyone because dogs help reduce stress and anxiety in many people, whether employees or visitors.
Libby was trained by a new nonprofit called FIDOS Facility Dogs, which is based in Bluff Park. The group was formed in late 2021 by three Hoover residents.
Tracy Anderson and Kelley Schaeffer were working to help raise puppies to become service dogs at the Roverchase organization in Pelham when they met Judith Thomason, another Hoover resident who had two dogs getting trained to become facility dogs.
After Thomason’s two dogs — Shelby and Foster — were placed to work with Thomason at the Children’s of Alabama clinic off Acton Road, Anderson and Schaeffer began volunteering to work with them there.
The three women developed a passion for facility dogs and — during a beach trip in 2021 — decided to form their own organization that focuses solely on facility dogs, said Schaeffer, who serves as the group’s executive director and board president.
“We have a passion for the dogs, and we have a passion for serving people,” Schaeffer said. “We decided the best way was to pull those two passions together. We were just women on a mission.”
They got their state nonprofit status in November 2021 and federal tax-exempt status in January 2022, Schaeffer said.
The first part of the group’s name — FIDOS — obviously is tied to the age-old dog name Fido, which means “faithful” and comes from the Latin word “fidelitas.” But it also is an acronym for Friends Invested and Dedicated to Outreach and Service.
FIDOS Facility Dogs is based out of Schaeffer’s Bluff Park home, where she has a dedicated space used as a training room that includes medical equipment such as a wheelchair and walker. Her backyard is like a “Dog Disney World,” with playground equipment, a dog walk, sandbox and other enrichment activities.
Schaeffer, Anderson, Thomason and two other board members work with the dogs and provide custom training to prepare the dogs for whatever jobs are needed at the facilities to which they are headed.
They also train future handlers who will be working with the dogs at the facilities and prepare the dogs to go live with one of the handlers. In turn, the facilities give a $12,000 donation to help cover costs, Schaeffer said.
Libby was the first dog trained by FIDOS, but there were three more dogs being trained at Schaeffer’s house in September, one destined for a nonprofit and another for an education system, Schaeffer said. Training takes 18-24 months before the dog is turned over fully to the facility and handler, she said. However, FIDOS starts taking the dogs into their facility about a year into the training to provide a gradual transition.
While many facilities have Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers or “doodle” mixes as facility dogs, FIDOS for now exclusively works with standard poodles, Schaeffer said. “They’re smart. They love to work and they love people,” she said.
Eventually, FIDOS would like to have a stand-alone training facility away from Schaeffer’s house, but her house is working for now, she said. “We took a vision and a passion, and we’re living it.”
For more information, go to fidosfacilitydogs.org.
