Tucked under a desk in an office – on the fifth floor of the Polymer Science Research building at the University of Massachusetts – is an unexpected sight. A young, yellow Labrador Retriever is asleep under the desk, lying on a fluffy dog bed surrounded by toys. Next to him is a florescent yellow vest that reads “Future Guide Dog.”

The dog is named Jack, and he is currently being trained as a guide dog by Laurie Banas, a business manager for the Energy Frontier Research Center at UMass.

Banas is a volunteer puppy walker for the Guide Dog Foundation for the visually impaired of Smithtown, N.Y. She began training guide dogs in 2002, and Jack is her ninth dog. As a puppy walker, it is Banas’ job to train dogs for the foundation from eight weeks until around 15 months and provide the dogs with the basic training they need to become successful guide companions. The dogs will assist the visually impaired, those with balance issues, PTSD or any other disabilities.

Banas has been fascinated by guide dogs ever since she was little, she said, but she began training dogs after the events of 9/11 as a way to help people. Banas said she likes training guide dogs because she gets to meet the people she is helping and make a lot of new friends.

Training a guide dog requires commitment. Before she could become a puppy walker, representatives from the Guide Dog Foundation visited Banas’ home in Hatfield to assess how training a guide dog would fit into her life. The foundation also provided Banas with training instructions, to ensure that all the dogs that volunteer puppy walkers train follow the same protocol.

Banas often plans her life around the dogs that she trains, making her line of work and relationships with her dogs a different experience than one has when they simply have a dog as a pet. When planning vacations or even going to the grocery store, she must take her dog into account. In order to be a successful guide dog, the dog needs to spend as much time training with the puppy walker as possible, so Jack accompanies Banas to work every day and anywhere else she goes.

“A lot of people don’t realize [that] you change your life. It’s like having a baby,” said Banas. “You have this animal for a good year, every day. If I try to go somewhere, at all costs I try to take the animal with me.”

The UMass campus provides an ideal space for Banas to train her guide dogs, she said. During the year that Banas trains a puppy, her main job is to socialize and desensitize the puppy. This means taking the dog to work every day and also to events on campus such as fairs, protests and sports games.

By taking the puppies to these kinds of events, she can expose them to many different situations that their future owner might encounter so that the puppy will be prepared, she said. And by desensitizing the puppies to crowds and noise, they will be better able to focus and do their jobs in the future.

When she brings her dogs around campus, Banas finds that not only is she training and educating the dog, she is also teaching the people who come in contact with her and her dog, many of whom don’t know much about service animals. Often, people will ask to pet her dog and Banas has to tell them no because the dog is currently working. Petting can often distract service dogs from their tasks.

“People are interested, so I try to educate them, too, because people don’t know how to act,” Banas said. “It’s not just the dog I have to train, it’s the people that go along with it.”

Banas has not always had an easy time training guide dogs on campus, however. When she moved from a position in the School of Education to her current job in the Energy Frontier Research Center, Maverick, the dog she was training at the time was considered a pet.

“The University said that you had to have a disability to have a training dog, so I was like ‘Well, how do you train one then?’ So I went to the vice chancellor’s office and the chancellor’s office and went to the Guide Dog Foundation and Fidelco and had people write letters,” said Banas.

“I was amazed that I had trouble because I didn’t have a disability. I would have left the job. If it came between the dog and the job, I would have left the job,” she said.

As of March 15, 2011, an amendment to the American Disabilities Act (ADA) stipulated that service dogs in training should be afforded the same rights as working service dogs. In accordance with the ADA amendment, UMass changed its policies regarding guide dogs in training. UMass’ new policy states that “A dog or puppy being trained has the same rights as a fully trained dog when accompanied by a trainer and is identified as such.”

There are several kinds of service dogs recognized by Disability Services, including assistance dogs, guide dogs, hearing/signal dogs, mobility alert dogs, psychiatric assistance dogs, sig dogs and seizure response dogs. The University requires verification of a need for a service dog in order for it to be present in University facilities. Dogs that are used for therapy or emotional support do not qualify as service dogs under University policy.

In May, when this year’s seniors graduate, Jack will also leave campus. He will return to the Guide Dog Foundation’s campus on Long Island, where he will undergo intensive training with a group of other dogs for three to six months. After that, the process of matching him with a new owner will begin.

The foundation carefully pairs dogs and owners so that they share a similar lifestyle. If a dog is high energy and prefers a fast lifestyle, he will be matched with someone who prefers the same. The new owners are then flown to the foundation’s campus where they meet their dog for the first time and undergo a 25-day in-residence training to learn how to work as a team with their guide dog.

After Banas sends her dogs back to the foundation, she said she typically waits a few months before getting a new puppy to train, even though she immediately begins to miss having a dog. When Jack leaves in May however, Banas said that she plans to give in and take a new dog immediately.

Sarah Hardy can be reached at [email protected].