![Four dogs pose in front of colorful play structures in a kennel.](https://www.guidedogs.com/uploads/images/About-Section/_1920x770_crop_center-center_none/Play-Time.jpg)
Career Change Dogs
A purpose for every pooch.
Becoming a GDB breeder, guide dog, or K9 Buddy takes a very special combination of health, skill, and behavioral soundness. Our standards are extremely high, and not all dogs end up meeting those standards. But even the dogs that are released from our programs are incredibly talented and well-trained; we lovingly call them "career change" dogs.
But that's not just a silly title! Many of our career change dogs go on to have different jobs that assist people and communities in a wide variety of roles, such as medical alert work, or search and rescue. We partner with a variety of like-minded service dog organizations to ensure that all of the dogs placed with other organizations will have happy, healthy, and meaningful lives.
For the small percentage of career change dogs that are not placed with other service organizations or are not adopted or placed by the volunteer(s) who raised them, we are committed to finding loving forever homes for them through our dog adoption program.
Please note that the career change dogs featured on our Pupdates website are typically not the dogs available for adoption. We kindly request that you not inquire about specific dogs and their availability for adoption. Thank you!