It was a dog's life for the Boise Company Jan. 26.
All company personnel gathered at the Canyon County Animal Shelter in Caldwell, Idaho, to volunteer for the "Meet your Match" Canine-ality Adoption Program.
Twenty-six Soldiers served as dog handlers, systematically testing the personalities of over 122 dogs with the program's "canine-ality" assessments.
"It is my goal as commander to have each of our Soldiers complete 20 hours of volunteer service in the community each fiscal year and this event was a great fit for us," said Capt. Christopher Collins, company commander. "The shelter needed a large group of volunteers and we met that need."
The goal of "Meet your Match" Canine-ality Adoption Program is reducing the number of adopted dogs that are returned to the shelters because they don't complement their new owner's needs or interests. Tests ranged from simple greetings to observation through video monitors on how the dogs acted when they were left alone in a furnished room.
Boise Company recruiters observed and documented the behaviors that would be eventually matched with an adopter who filled out a separate survey assessing their own personality and what they sought from a pet.
Paulina Roberson, a volunteer coordinator with the animal shelter, was grateful for the recruiters' assistance.
"After speaking with a few dedicated volunteers I realized that it was a much harder task to get a large group together than I had thought," she said.
It was a long day, said 1st Sgt. Chad Treloar, of assessing and rating 122 dogs, but he and the commander like to have the recruiters accomplish community service.
Boise Company was not the only help at the event. The county sheriff's department had volunteer prisoners there as well, doing clean up after the animals as they were being put through the tests.
Roberson credited the effort by all the volunteers as accomplishing a great help to the shelter, since its budget would not allow it to hire people to do the day-long testing.
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