Training Wheels® Urban Solutions Take a virtual ride!         View the APDT Article (Adobe pdf)         Adolescent Alternatives         Lug-Nuts™ Program

There is a crisis in high-crime urban areas in which a cycle of violence is being perpetuated. Dogs are used as macho status symbols for young people and fighting and sparring are often the only models of human-canine interaction for younger kids to grow up with. These dogs are being bred in proliferation. Sparring on street corners and casual dog fighting can be found erupting in alleys and basements at any given time. Attacks by dogs, maulings and serious dog bites are frequent occurrences in neighborhoods everywhere.

Outreach efforts and spay/neuter campaigns that have been so effective in other areas have largely failed to reach this population. Although the past twenty years has seen a significant decrease in the pet over population problem in this country due to an aggressive spay/neuter campaign, that campaign has had a limited effectiveness. This spay/neuter campaign is, and has been, highly effective at encouraging, educating, and offering low-cost opportunities for pet owners for whom the behavioral and physical benefits of sterilization are worthwhile and pertinent. For many pet owners, financial constraints prevent them from sterilizing their pets, so offering low-cost or even free services is all that it takes to get them to comply. For others, the health benefits and increased potential life-span are a motivation to spay or neuter. Still for others, the behavioral benefits are useful: a decrease in dog-dog aggression, a decrease in dominance aggression, a decrease in sexual frustration and arousal and other behaviors that are influenced when testosterone is removed.

Most of these motivations for spaying and neutering are completely off-target for urban youths. In high-crime urban areas dogs are bred for their toughness, tenacity, size and aggressiveness. The numbers of unwanted fighting dogs, litters of macho breed-types, and dominant-aggressive dogs is profound, and are filling up city animal shelters across the nation. Bred, trained and raised for dominance and aggression, these unwanted dogs are euthanized or held interminably in shelters since the possibility for successful rehabilitation and ultimate re-homing of these dogs is so remote.

Creative community outreach is desperately needed in our urban areas. New programs to find ways to encourage spaying and neutering as well as programs that provide positive role models for young people and their dogs are crucial.

Training Wheels® Urban Solutions offers programs to break this cycle by:

• Providing positive role models for at-risk adolescents

• Encouraging alternative dog sports that are exciting, compelling, and competitive rather than violent and harmful

• Developing positive relationships in the community to intercept and influence the current and next generation

Training Wheels® has programs custom tailored to meet the needs of both urban and rural communities.

If not the shelter, who will help people become the best animal care givers they can possibly be? If not the shelter, who can serve as a model for the humane treatment of people and animals in the community?

Click here for information on Training Wheels ® Urban Solutions Adolescent Alternatives Program.

Click here for information on Training Wheels® Urban Solutions Lug-Nuts™ Program

For more information contact:

Jane Kopelman Training Wheels® Director 4628 Route 209 Accord, NY 12404 (845) 687-4406