Training facility trains rescues to be service dogs

BYERS, Colo. (KDVR) — A dog training facility in eastern Colorado is giving rescue dogs a second chance at life, plus a start in a new career.

Michelle Abel, owner of Leasure Ranch K9 Academy, has been training dogs for 34 years. In May 2021, she purchased land in Byers and began working with Scroungy Dogs and Pretty Pups Rescue to train unruly dogs and help find them homes.

Dogs have also come to them through other means.

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“We also have found that, unfortunately, there’s a lot of people dumping dogs these days,” Abel said.

Eventually, Abel started training the dogs that came to them to be service dogs.

“That way, we can take them in and make them into service dogs and get them into homes and help people along with helping the dogs at the same time,” Abel said.

After training service dogs for a while, a new idea was then presented to her.

“One of my daughter’s friends was diagnosed with celiac,” Abel said. “Her mother dared me to teach a dog to detect gluten.”

Abel said she began seeing the importance of having a dog that can help someone diagnosed with celiac disease after her daughter’s friend was given a snack before one of her softball practices.

“The dog detected it wasn’t safe, and come to find out, it’s because the mother had accidentally cooked it on the family stoneware instead of the daughter’s stoneware. So, it contaminated the gluten-free food,” Abel said.

People who have celiac disease can sometimes be affected by trace amounts of gluten.

“It is a disease that can actually eat away at their insides at times, and the smallest amount can actually cause some serious damage,” Abel said.

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This is why service dogs can be an invaluable resource for someone with this disease.

Dogs can have up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their nose, compared to about six million in humans. They can smell through glass, plastic and even strong substances like alcohol.

“Anything that has gluten in it, whether it be wheat, rye, barley or even malt, they can detect it,” Abel said.

The way Abel said she trains her dogs is when they are presented with an object, they are taught to sit if it is safe and lay down if it is not.

“To me, that is the most cut-and-dry I’ve found. There’s not really a question,” Abel said.

Very quickly, Abel said word got out over social media, and that’s when she said she realized how great the need was for dogs who could detect gluten.

“We’ve had four people just in the last two weeks that had decided to take on dogs for the detection of gluten,” Abel said. “It is a big, big need, and it’s not something that’s happening that often. And so, once people are finding out that it can be done, then I’m having an overflow of people that are interested in it.”

Abel said it’s because things labeled “gluten-free”, might not be celiac-friendly, which can be a big difference for someone with a high sensitivity.

“Lots of things in stores are cross-contaminated. Lots of things in restaurants. And unfortunately, lots of people that have celiac don’t frequently tend to go out in public because they are scared that they will get what they call ‘glutened,'” Abel said.

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Now, hundreds of hours and careful training is put into each service dog, especially if it is going to be paired with a client with celiac disease.

“I’ve got one client that is purchasing a dog, that they are opening a celiac restaurant,” Abel said. “That dog is going to be there all the time, but it needs to not eat the food off the plates, and it needs to stay and in a down stay for sometimes hours on end.”

Abel said she also had one dog who is now an employee of Disneyland with her own employee badge.

“There’s a lot going into, not just the gluten detection, but most importantly being a service dog and not disrupting people when they are in public,” Abel said.

At the end of the day, she said it can be a rewarding job since it is all about helping dogs and helping people.

“Every family, there’s different circumstances and we try to train these dogs according to their expectations, their needs, and the lifestyle that they have,” Abel said.

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