Baseball bats and barn vermin: These Idaho dogs do more than just play fetch on the job

Attend a Boise State football or a Boise Hawks baseball game, and you’ll see a hard worker with slick black hair working hard to collect tees, bats and balls thrown by the wayside.

Or perhaps that should be slick black fur - because the hard worker isn’t a human but a black Labrador retriever called Blitz. He’s relatively new to the job after taking over from his father Kohl, who passed away in 2021.

Blitz has a pretty unique job — there aren’t many dogs who get to work alongside college football players and professional baseball players.

But the state of Idaho in general certainly isn’t short on jobs for dogs. As the unemployment rate for humans in the Gem State hit a historic low of 2.5% in May, there seem to be just as many working opportunities for dogs in Idaho, too.

The Idaho Statesman talked to Boise’s Positive Pets Dog Training trainer Devin Martin, who is also Blitz’s trainer, about some of the most common jobs for dogs in Idaho.

Martin emphasized that, while certain breeds are more perfectly geared toward specific jobs, it’s never too late to train a dog, and you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks.

“I’ve worked with a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old just in the last six months and actively taught them new things,” Martin said. “Obviously, you want to start younger because it tends to give you better success, but I’ve seen older dogs do better than younger dogs.”

Hunting dogs

Most common breeds: German shorthaired pointer, English setter, Irish setter, Wirehaired pointing griffon

For hunting birds such as pheasant, quail and chukar, Martin said that the best type of dog is a pointer or setter breed because these dogs have a wider range from their owners to help locate birds and let their owners know where they are.

Martin said that Labrador retrievers are also good options for retrieving birds, such as when waterfowl hunting, but they aren’t as good at ranging farther away from their owner as other hunting dogs.

Barn hunt dogs

Most common breeds: Terriers

Barn hunting is a specific job in which dogs enter a barn and sniff out any rodents living there to remove them. Barn hunting dogs are typically speedy and agile with a good nose to sniff out any above-ground rodents.

Any sort of terrier is suitable for the job, Martin said, because their name comes from the Latin word “terra,” which means Earth. Terriers were specifically bred to hunt for vermin and are a popular choice around the world for barn hunting.

Service and therapy dogs

Most common breeds: All dogs

One of the most wide-ranging occupations for a job, service and therapy jobs are open to most dogs with a good temperament. Service dogs help perform necessary actions for people with disabilities, such as fetching items and guiding people with visual impairments, while therapy dogs help comfort and calm people down in universities, hospitals, and assisted living communities.

Golden Retrievers are a common choice for service and therapy positions because they “tend to love everyone and everything,” Martin said, but dogs for these jobs come in all shapes and sizes.

“We have therapy dogs that weigh 7 pounds, and we have therapy dogs that weigh 150 pounds,” Martin said.

Boise State University often has Therapy Dog Thursdays on campus. Go Team Therapy, Crisis and Airport Dogs and Alliance of Therapy Dogs are two of the largest organizations that operate in the northwest.

Herding dogs

Most common breeds: Australian cattle dog, Border collie, Australian shepherd

The Australian shepherd is Idaho’s claim to fame in the dog breeding world. The breed’s ancestry dates back to the Basque region of northern Spain, but Basque settlers took the dog to Australia and afterward to the northwest United States.

The dog earned the name Australian shepherd because of its time down under, but the breed as we know it today was bred in Idaho, Oregon and Northern California, according to Martin.

The Australian cattle dog is most commonly used for herding cattle, and the border collie and Australian shepherd are used more for herding sheep. There are herding clubs and trials for dogs in Idaho to see if they would make good herding dogs, which tests them on herding cattle, sheep and ducks.