Each day, Catherine Ricchetti, a canine training expert and adjunct professor at SUNY Cobleskill, wakes up and faces the high energy, and often unpredictable, world of canine management. Ricchetti, a NYSUT retiree and current member of UUP, teaches students to build structured dog training programs with canine welfare at their cores, encouraging future trainers to advocate for the dogs’ well-being throughout their training.
“I want my students to walk away saying ‘I can build a structured facility dog program, I can help a professional understand canine welfare and I can train a dog to do targeted interventions or targeted services,’” said Ricchetti.
Ricchetti first started working with dogs as part of a pilot program at the elementary school where she worked. She created a curriculum and presented it to the board of education and the superintendent. The program was approved, and the rest is history. Ricchetti began expanding the program to other area-schools, resulting in full-time facility dogs at every elementary school in the district. Now retired from that district, Ricchetti spends her days helping college students train dogs for in-school programs just like the one she built years previously.
Ricchetti noted that students gain hands-on experience with both domestic and working dogs and are expected to be the “voice of the canines.”
“The most challenging part of teaching this subject is helping students really understand that a canine is a sentient being,” she said. “There are times that this work is actually really hard for a dog, and building in structure and strong canine welfare into a facility dog program is critical.”
SUNY Cobleskill offers the only combined, comprehensive canine training and management curriculum in SUNY. The bachelor’s degree program prepares students to pursue careers in dog training, canine business ownership and management, or work in government and private canine security.
Ricchetti draws a parallel between protecting working dogs’ welfare and the protections unions provide for workers.
“You create structure just like the union would,” she said. "Built-in breaks, vacations if you need it – some dogs go down to part-time.”
Graduates from the in-depth, skill-based program can expect to go on to work in a variety of high-demand fields, including in trained therapy, service, detection, search and rescue, and more.
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