Dozens of dogs graduate from the Pacific Assistance Dogs Society

PADS graduation ceremony 33 dogs are now ready to provide life-changing independence to those with disabilities

It has been a banner year for PADS with 33 service teams graduating, five from Calgary.

The graduation ceremony took place in Calgary Sunday afternoon but a livestream was available for the teams on B.C.’s Lower Mainland and the Okanagan who couldn't make this ceremony.

PADS has been around for almost 40 years.

“I think what's really exciting is that we have been able to drift our organized mission," says Miranda Turenne, PADS Instructor. "Now we are an organization that's able to be even more inclusive than ever of people with all sorts of disabilities, whether they're physical or they're self-regulatory, emotional, cognitive -- those types of disabilities are just as important."

PADS volunteers starting when they are eight weeks old and they are turned over to the society’s dog university when they are a year-and-a half-old. Just like students declaring a major, the dogs find a speciality in university.

One of the graduates is a dog named Bunker who is working at the Calgary Catholic School District and the Calgary Board of Education.

“A couple of days a week he spends with me working in mental health and behaviour programs with the Calgary Catholic School District, and three days a week he's at Eric Harvie School in Tuscany working on reading programs and with his diversity teacher there,” says Bunker’s trainer Shawna Harp Hays.

The dogs are now ready to help veterans and first responders with PTSD, those with mobility and hearing challenges or work as an accredited facility dog helping community care providers.