BLACKSBURG (WSLS 10) -- Four months after stepping paws on campus at Virginia Tech, a trio of puppies is wrapping up its first semester at Puppy University.
"If you think about having a teenager in your house," said Saint Francis Service Dog trainer Connie Kniseley. "That's where these puppies are now. They are doing things they know they're not supposed to and kind of pushing the limits a little. And that's always challenging for every puppy raiser," she said with a smile.
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The training, through a partnership with Saint Francis and Virginia Tech is challenging for students who are juggling their own course load while raising puppies through the program, Puppy University.
"It's a lot of fun," said third-year veterinary student and puppy raiser Alex King. "It's exhausting, especially when we first got them."
King and his wife have a dog of their own at home but he admits it takes a little more effort to raise a puppy that will one day be a professionally trained service dog.
"I spoil my dog at home, encourage him to get on the bed, get on the couch, to sit with me while I'm doing anything. And this dogs got to the standards are little bit higher," King said.
The foundational skills learned at Virginia Tech, while the same as Saint Francis' traditional training at its Roanoke County campus, is more intense.
Tucker, Koda and Esme spend all day with work study students before going home with their puppy raisers at night.
"It's a huge benefit for us. Number one it's more puppies in the program, it's more puppy raisers," said Kniseley. "Virginia Tech and the vet school here now helping out financially with the puppies as well as providing the puppy raisers for us."
The puppies walk on campus with their raisers and encounter a number of "distractions," helping them learn social skills that will be significant after graduation.
"The big thing these puppies are getting is socialization," Kniseley said. "They are being exposed to so many things that some of our traditional puppy raisers are unable to expose them to."
It takes a village, or in this case, a university.
"It truly is Puppy University. It's a whole team of people helping," Kniseley said.
The puppies will graduate from the Puppy University program in about a year. They'll follow it up with advanced training for up to one year before Saint Francis places them with their partner, free of charge.