Sunrise Service Dogs Inc

2025 Colorado BCL Workshop

Sep

Friday, September 19 at 4:00 PM

to Sunday, September 21 at 10:30 PM

6540 Vincent Dr

Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA

About This Event

Sunrise Service Dogs is proud to host the 2025 Colorado BCL Workshop presented by the International Working Dog Association (IWDA).

Your Presenters:

Rachel Goldammer, International Working Dog Registry

Rachel is a private consultant specializing in reproduction, whelping, neonatal care, puppy socialization and development, behavior testing, and strategic planning. With over 15+ years within the industry, she started her career at Nestle Purina before working for Southeastern Guide Dogs and then with organizations like Guide Dogs of America and Freedom Service Dogs. She has a B.S in Agricultural Science with an emphasis in animal reproduction and biology from Truman State University. She has focused on building breeding programs from the ground up using industry best practices and electronic data storage. She is passionate about helping other assistance dog schools and working dog programs get their own purpose-bred colony off the ground.

At the IWDR, Rachel participates in conference presentations with particular emphasis on program development and early socialization protocols. She develops educational opportunities, including contributions to the IWDR knowledgebase and webinar programs, and utilizes her varied industry experience to contribute to strategic planning and improvement of IWDR services.

Dr. David Roberts, North Carolina State University,Associate Professor

David L. Roberts received the B.A. in computer science and mathematics from Colgate University in 2003 and the Ph.D. in computer science from the College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010. He is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs, and Interim Director of the Digital Games Research center at North Carolina State University. His research interests lie at the intersection of machine learning, social and behavioral psychology, and animal-computer interaction, with groundbreaking work that's transforming both the assistance dog and pet dog industries to enhance the lives of people and their canine companions. Dr. Roberts focuses on using computation as a tool to provide insight into human and nonhuman animal behavior in digital and real-world environments. His innovative research has earned him the Georgia Tech President's Fellowship and Student Research Excellence Commendation, multiple IBM Faculty Awards, and best paper awards and nominations at International Conferences including Interactive Digital Storytelling, SIGCHI, Robot and Human Communication, Computational Intelligence in Games, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

He has co-founded two startup companies commercializing nonhuman animal-computer interaction technologies and is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Association for Computing Machinery. Dr. Roberts works collaboratively with faculty and students in other departments on the design of hardware, software, and analytics for measuring, characterizing, and predicting animal temperament and behavior.

Outside of his professional life, Dr. Roberts enjoys cooking and hiking as his main hobbies but can often be found doing a wide variety of things ranging from carpentry to meadow habitat restoration. He currently shares his life with his wife, two daughters, three dogs, and 9 chickens.

What is a behavior assessment?

A behavior assessment is the process of identifying and noting an individual dog’s reaction to various environmental stimuli. Well-made behavior assessments measure the things a dog does and avoid the use of adjectives such as anxiety or suspicion, which are our interpretations of the behavior.

Why assess behavior?

There are a number of reasons why you may want to assess behavior in a more formal way. For example, some reasons that Guide and Service Dog Schools assess behavior include:

Determining the suitability of a dog for its intended role/training.
Efficient processing of dogs to reduce unnecessary occupancy of kennels by dogs not suited to training; this could include re-allocating dogs to more suitable programs/roles.
Improving welfare by not attempting to train dogs that are not suited to the rigors of guide dog work.
Determining the suitability of a dog for breeding.
Measuring changes in behavior of a dog over time.
Measuring changes in behavior within a colony of dogs.
Gathering data that can be used to determine the heritability of behavioral traits.
Using gathered data to exert selection pressure to increase or decrease the prevalence of behavioral traits in a breeding colony.
Sharing meaningful information between breeding partners

The BCL Workshop will take place over three days.

Day 1: Friday, September 19, 2025
Day 2: Saturday, September 20, 2025
Day 3: Sunday, September 21, 2025

Agenda (subject to change). Please note that all times are in the Mountain Time Zone:

Lunch, complimentary snacks, and refreshments throughout the day are provided as part of each registration fee.

More Information

Please register each person in your group. Payment is required at the time of booking.

$200 per person early bird pricing March 1, 2025 - July 31st 2025
$220 per person after July 31, 2025

Transportation to and from sponsoring hotel is not provided.

Sponsoring Hotel: TBD

Service dogs compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act are welcome on campus. This does not include therapy or emotional support dogs. To adhere to local and state Department of Agriculture (PACFA) and to protect the health of our canines onsite, all dogs visiting the Sunrise Service Dogs facility must have prior authorization.   Please complete the CANINE PROOF OF VACCINATION  form if you are bringing a service animal to our facility.

Registration fees are nonrefundable, you may however, transfer paid fees to another participant.

Registration cutoff is September 1, 2025. Contact Laura Edwards at Sunrise Service Dogs with changes after this date, or if you have any questions, email at ledwards@sunriseservicedogs.org.

IMPORTANT: When registering, Zeffy will ask for a donation to help cover their costs. If you want 100% of your registration fee to cover the costs of this workshop, simply select ‘Other’ under the Confirm your donation section instead of a percentage donation. Otherwise Zeffy will automatically add a 17% donation to support their platform.

2025 Colorado BCL Workshop Admission

$200

Available until Aug 1

Early bird tickets available now through July 31, 2025. Registration fees are nonrefundable, you may however, transfer paid fees to another participant. **IMPORTANT:** When registering, payment processing plaform (Zeffy) will ask for a donation to help cover their costs as company. If you want 100% of your registration fee to cover the costs of this workshop, simply select ‘Other’ under the Confirm your donation section instead of a percentage donation. Otherwise Zeffy will automatically add a 17% donation to support their platform.

Did you know? We fundraise with Zeffy to ensure 100% of your purchase goes to our mission!

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