PRINCETON, Mass. - NEADS is making room to raise more future service dogs. A new breeding facility will allow the nonprofit to care for 10 litters at a time, about five times the number they have now. 

“This gives us the ability to raise more puppies,” Kate Albertini said. “Train more puppies in our program.”

Albertini is the manager of breeding and puppy development. She said the pandemic hit the breeding program hard. They’re matching about 20 dogs a year with clients, half of what they were doing before.  

“Our ultimate goal is to not only get back to our pre-covid matches of 40 clients a year, but actually increase that to 65 clients a year,” Albertini said. 

Service dogs from NEADS work with veterans and people with disabilities. Their list of approved clients is growing faster than the number of dogs they can train. 

“We have a really big need for service dogs across all of our programs,” Albertini said. “We have a long list of accepted clients and we are working really hard to serve those clients as quickly as we can.”

Albertini said the new facility will be a significant change for their breeding program. Everything the dogs need is here.

“The whole reason for this building is to help us better support our mission of changing lives through world class service dogs,” Albertini said. 

Dancer is the mom to one NEAD’s newest litters. The black and yellow lab puppies could be one of the first to try out the new facility.​