Dogs are even used to encourage automobile safety. Buck, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department dog pictured above, reminds motorists to “buckle up.”
New Jersey has been home to a number of dogs that gained national attention for their service, their antics, or simply because Americans have always taken delight in the companionship of dogs.
“The Seeing Eye,” headquartered in Morristown, is the oldest guide dog school in the nation. Since 1929, it has matched more than eleven thousand trained guide dogs with visually impaired men and women.
In 1938, the crew of the Coast Guard cutter Campbell adopted a mixed-breed puppy. The dog, appropriately named Sinbad, sailed on board the Campbell throughout World War II; and Coast Guard officials commented the dog saw “much action, both at sea and at port.” Sinbad served faithfully for eleven years before retiring to the Barnegat Light Station.
Above and beyond their place as family companions and in traditional service occupations, dogs in New Jersey serve in an ever-widening spectrum of therapeutic roles. The physical and emotional benefits to humans that come from relationships with dogs are now recognized and utilized by psychiatric facilities, assisted living centers, hospitals, schools and even prisons.
Today, dogs contribute more to the welfare of individuals and society than perhaps at any other time in the history of the human-dog bond. Additionally, over the past three decades, increased awareness of the importance of humane care and control, the enactment and enforcement of leash laws, and dog bite prevention education, have all been instrumental in drastically lowering the number of reported dog-related injuries nationwide.
Sinbad with his shipmates
National Canine Research Council