Mobility Dogs: Nine Waikato canine recruits for Puppies in Prison programme

Veronica Garcia Gil is the only senior trainer in Hamilton of the Mobility Dogs organisation. Photo / Malisha Kumar

As an 18 year old in Mexico, Veronica Garcia Gil’s dream was to be a service dog trainer.

Fast forward to when she was in her 30s and living in New Zealand, she began training her first puppy with the charity Mobility Dogs.

Now in 2025, she’s the organisation’s only senior trainer in the Waikato.

Mobility Dogs provides trained dogs for people who have special medical needs or are living with a long-term physical disability.

The dogs assist individuals with a range of tasks, including retrieving items, opening doors, and getting dressed. Every dog is uniquely trained to meet the specific needs of their future human partner.

There are currently nine puppies being trained in Hamilton.

When they turn 12 months old, they will move to the Auckland Region Women’s Correctional Facility for further training as part of the Puppies in Prison programme.

Talking to the Waikato Herald about what it’s like to have “the best job in the world”, Garcia Gil said she started volunteering for Mobility Dogs in 2010, seven years after arriving in the country.

She said she came to New Zealand to study towards a master’s degree in animal behaviour.

When she had children a few years later, she decided to home-school them. As part of this, she and her kids learned about different types of service dogs.

The Waikato Herald attended a mobility dog training session at the Chartwell Shopping Centre in Hamilton. Photo / Malisha Kumar

She suggested volunteering for an organisation together with her kids and they decided on Mobility Dogs.

Three weeks later the first puppy moved into their home.

“I never stopped training mobility dogs since, and I don’t see it stopping either.

“It’s the best job in the world.”

Garcia Gil said her inspiration was her passion for dogs and “changing people’s lives”.

Especially when training the puppies out in public she could see a “ripple effect on the community”.

“You know when you’re having one of those hard days and then you grab a dog ... it just makes someone’s day so much better just by being there for a little time.

“Every day I go to work it’s not only me that’s happy ... we sprinkle that joy and compassion all around.”

That joy and compassion was also key to the Puppies in Prison programme.

As part of this, some women who are currently inmates at the Auckland facility would be teamed up with a puppy to expose them to diverse environments and experiences that are essential for the dogs’ early training.

“The prison setting provides a unique and controlled environment where our puppies can safely interact with people, explore new surroundings, and begin their foundational training during a critical developmental stage,” a spokesperson for Mobility Dogs said.

“This is particularly valuable, as young pups have limited exposure to public spaces before they complete their vaccinations.”

Mobility Dogs puppy-raisers in Hamilton. Photo / Malisha Kumar

Garcia Gil said a puppy would not only help someone with their rehabilitation and learning “patience, responsibility, and emotional coping mechanisms”, but it would also impact “their family in the longer term”.

The puppies gave the women “unconditional love and they don’t judge”.

She said she was lucky to accompany the puppies through their schooling. After they undergo initial training – Garcia Gil calls it high school – they go to the Puppies in Prison programme to do their “degree” in mobility dog training, before their “masters” in a specific mobility disease.

Until their “degree and masters”, puppies live with their “raisers”, who help expose them to different environments such as supermarkets and shopping centres.

Garcia Gil said the hardest part about her job was to take a puppy away from their raiser.

“As much as they know it’s coming, there’s always tears.”

However, she said there was a good community of Hamilton puppy-raisers, who knew “mobility dogs have a bigger purpose in life”.

“Not passing that dog on and depriving someone of that gift would be selfish. When [the dogs] get to their purpose you can say, ‘That was my baby, I was part of its training’, and that’s your reward [as a raiser].”

The Puppies in Prison programme is run in partnership with the Department of Corrections. Garcia Gil said it played a vital role in the development of future mobility dogs and rehabilitation for women in prison.

The Auckland facility’s residential manager Daisy-Fau Tanuvasa said it created a “huge sense of belonging” for women in custody.

“I have witnessed so many changes regarding their behaviour and mental wellbeing... The companionship with the dogs really helps the women with their rehabilitation process.”

Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.