Janice Triptow is helping Truman, a traumatized and scared dog, and his Chicago foster mom prepare him for a forever home. He has been making progress, and he is now starting agility classes.
Triptow also works with high school students, training them to teach grammar school children the ABCs of basic dog care. She also trains teenage boys living in a detention facility to work with shelter dog and runs a pit bull puppy training class.
Triptow has done all of this and more in less than a year as a Best Friends training partner.
“This program may still be in its infancy, but it’s obviously working,” says Triptow. “And I can’t tell you how rewarding it is for me to be a part of this.”
Janice Triptow signed on as a Best Friends training partner in Chicago when Best Friends first got the call that Truman needed help. (You can read all about Truman here.)
The other initiatives she’s involved with are part of Best Friends-sponsored Safe Humane Chicago (SHC) programs. Through the SHC Youth Leaders Program, Triptow and approved dog-and-handler teams show high school students how to teach grade school children the importance of kindness and compassion toward animals.
Through a SHC Lifetime Bonds program, Triptow and approved dog-and-handler teams make weekly visits to the Illinois Youth Center in Chicago, a detention facility for young males ages 13 to 17, to teach the boys living there how to train dogs, how to build relationships with them and ultimately how to continue to forge positive relationships in all aspects of their lives. They are using these skills to help shelter dogs become more obviously adoptable. Triptow teaches the Lifetime Bonds pit bull puppy training class at no charge to low-income Chicago residents. And recently, she began working with the dogs at Chicago Animal Care and Control, offering basic training and socializing so they might be adopted sooner than later.
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Getting involved in Chicago |
All of these training partner initiatives contribute to the Best Friends First Home Forever Home campaign and many to the Pit Bulls: Saving America’s Dog campaign. Triptow says she is grateful to have the opportunity to make a difference as Chicago’s first training partner.
But Triptow had to leap through a few hoops before becoming an official Best Friends training partner. There was the exhaustive questionnaire and essay questions posing various training scenarios. And finally, Mike Harmon, Best Friends Community Training Partners coordinator, needed to see Triptow in action before she was accepted into the program.
A couple of months ago, Harmon left Best Friends for a week-long visit to observe Triptow working with groups, individuals, teens and adults to train pit bull puppies and shelter dogs, and even teach some agility classes.
Yes, she was a perfect fit for the training program.
“After a spending a couple days with Janice, I realized this is a trainer we want to build our program around in Chicago,” says Harmon. “Janice has great understanding of the issues in the city and has the willingness and the desire to implement programs that will make her community a safe community for animals and people.”
Generally, much of the training partners’ assignments will involve working with an individual dog (as Triptow does with Truman): A call will come in to Best Friends about an animal in a specific location who needs specific help. In Truman’s case, Triptow received the basic information on Truman from Best Friends and Safe Humane Chicago and then set up a training schedule with Truman’s foster family. Even almost a year later, Triptow continues to work with Truman. She will stay with him for “as long as it takes.”
“Until he finds the right forever home with people who agree to take on the responsibility of continual training — because he will need continual training throughout his life — I’ll continue to monitor his progress and work with him,” says Janice. “This isn’t deadline-driven kind of work, and each situation will be different. So I stay with each individual dog for the duration, whatever that may be.”
In addition, Triptow has enjoyed the added challenges of incorporating her role as training partner with the Safe Humane Chicago programs, especially the pit bull puppy training program. “Servicing a population that is unaccustomed to accessing a resource like a trainer has been unbelievably rewarding, and intellectually and professionally challenging,” says Triptow. “I learn as much as I teach. For instance, many of my clients don’t need to know how to wipe their puppies’ paws, but they do need to know what to do when walking their dog by a fence where other dogs are barking aggressively.
“One of the participants brought his child to the class so he could teach his son how to relate to the dog. And to see results take place right then and there, well, it’s an amazing experience to witness.”
To learn more, visit the Community Training Partners Program group on the Best Friends Network.
Written and photos by Amy Abern
