PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- Cadillac, the black lab, is fairly well known on the Portland campus of the University of New England.
"He just streams right into my day, he does whatever I do when I’m doing it." Kailey Worthington is in her first year of graduate school at UNE, studying occupational therapy. She's training Cadillac to be a service dog, through the organization Canine Companions for Independence.
"I had to do 45 hours and two overnights with someone who already had a dog they were training," said Worthington. It's not a program through the college, but having Cadillac with her at school has been helpful for her lesson plans.
"My actual fieldwork for this semester is outpatient pediatrics and it has two facility service dogs, so I am just looking to learn more on how that works."
"I think he’s shaping the future of her career, but also the rest of the class; the rest of the students who are exposed," said Kristin Winston, the Director of UNE's Occupational Therapy program. "Now I think people are incorporating the idea of what a service dog would look like in occupational therapy practice or in their individual therapy. I think that’s influencing not only the students in occupational therapy, but the students on the Portland campus who interact with him, see his vest, and see he is a working dog."
Cadillac has to learn 30 commands in the year he's with Worthington, and learn how to behave in public.
He will have to be tested once his training is done, and his personality matched with someone on the waiting list, then, Cadillac will have training with his new handler.