ASPCA Behavioral Rehabilitation Center

In March 2013, the ASPCA launched the ASPCA Behavioral Rehabilitation Center, a pilot program located at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison, New Jersey. It was the first and only facility dedicated to providing behavioral rehabilitation for severely fearful, unadoptable dogs, such as those confiscated from puppy mills and hoarding situations. Due to the success of the pilot program, which had 237 graduates over four years, the ASPCA has expanded its program and built a permanent facility in Weaverville, North Carolina. The state-of-the-art facility can house up to 65 dogs at a time. It includes a dormitory and several teaching spaces where shelter professionals can learn our behavior modification techniques, to further help behaviorally challenged dogs across the country become suitable for adoption. Homeless dogs of all ages and backgrounds are eligible for the program, as long as they are physically healthy and meet our behavioral inclusion criteria. Only dogs whose fear is so severe that it compromises their quality of life and makes adoption challenging or impossible are accepted. The Weaverville facility has individual kennels, along with “real-life rooms,” designed to help dogs get used to life in home environments, outdoor play areas, and a large indoor training area where our behaviorists and trainers work with dogs in the program. On average, rehabilitation requires 13 weeks of treatment. However, that timing depends heavily on the severity of each dog’s behavior problems and how responsive he or she is to treatment. Once the dogs have completed the program, the transformed graduates are placed within our network of partner shelters and rescue groups to be made available for adoption or adopted directly at our facility.