BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Mannered Mutts Rescue in Monroe County saw the need to train dogs to give them a better chance at finding that forever family.
Jillian Rich is one of the volunteers at the rescue. She said they teach the dogs better behaviors, like walking on a leash and not jumping on people.
"We take a lot of dogs that are in shelters or that are owner surrenders in our community," Rich said. "We will get some basic foundation dog training on them to help them find good homes."
Rich said one of the main reasons owners surrender dogs is because of behavioral issues that go undetected until they're in the home. Owners often have a hard time with basic tasks with their dogs because of things like bad leash etiquette or jumping on kids.
"We thought, 'What a good idea it would be if some of these dogs were better set up for success by learning what to do and learning a lot of these basic manners and skills that people want.'"
The rescue relies on volunteer foster families to keep it running. They now have volunteers in several states that help run the program and help secure funding. But they can always use more to help spread their message: training saves lives.
"We know that so many dogs had been saved from having some training," Rich said. "And that's helped helped keep a lot of dogs outside of a lifetime of living in a shelter and saved a lot of dogs from being euthanized."
Right now, Mannered Mutts Rescue has several dogs, trained and ready to find that forever family. To see the pets the rescue has available, click here.