Tennis has gone to the dogs at Woods Tennis Center in Lincoln

If you’ve been to Woods Tennis Center recently and saw a dog on the court, your eyes weren’t deceiving you. It could’ve been Miley, Rocky or Kayce with their handler Kaitlin Roselius, Director of Community Outreach & Evaluation at Woods. She is also a volunteer for Domesti-PUPs, a local nonprofit that trains service dogs for children with disabilities and therapy dogs. 

As a volunteer “Puppy Raiser” she reinforces training and exposes the pups to a variety of different environments and situations. Taking them to Woods Tennis Center is one of many places she brings them. 

“The puppies come with me in the mornings to Woods if I’m not on court coaching,” she said. “I also bring them with me when we host tournaments. The dogs have become a staple for coworkers, players, and patrons – they always love asking about how training is going and it’s a great opportunity to help share more about the role of service dogs.”

Roselius decided to volunteer for this organization when several of her colleagues in grad school were doing it, and talked about the benefits of it. Kaitlin noticed when she brought the dogs to the tennis center, it wasn’t only benefitting the canines, but also the children. 

“I’ve also seen first-hand the positive impact having a trained dog around can have such as helping calm anxiety in junior players and lowering stress levels,” she said. “For the dogs, bringing them to Woods has been a great way to desensitize them to certain stimuli like children, unfamiliar noises and, of course, tennis balls!”

Kaitlin said it can be hard when her time with a particular puppy is done, but the reward of knowing a child will benefit makes it easier. Not to mention she will soon be getting a new puppy to train.