Dog art a benefit for disabled

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SALISBURY, Md. -- Strapped for cash and looking for a way to keep open her fledgling dog-training academy, Mary Stadelbacher hit upon a bizarre fundraising scheme.

If she could teach dogs to become service animals for the disabled -- holding open doors and even removing socks for people in wheelchairs -- why couldn't she teach them to hold a paintbrush and swab a piece of art?

Two years later, the owner of Shore Service Dogs has a collection of abstract paintings daubed by her three service dogs in training. The creations are rudimentary, to be sure, but the bright strokes painted across white canvases are winning fans because of their tail-wagging creators. "Signed" in the corner with a black paw print, 20 of the works are being shown this month at a gallery at Salisbury University.

The doggie da Vincis also have a line of greeting cards that has sold out as word spreads about the unusual works of art. One of the original works has sold for $350.

"Go paint, Sammy," Miss Stadelbacher ordered at a recent demonstration at the packed gallery, where about three dozen people strained to see the large mixed-breed dog chomp a red rubber bone with a hole drilled in the middle to hold a paintbrush. Miss Stadelbacher had dipped the brush in blue acrylic paint.

After a little coaxing, Sammy took the bone brush and headed for a white canvas taped to an easel in the corner. As directed, Sammy swiped the brush across the canvas and then looked to Miss Stadelbacher for more instructions, tail wagging.

His trainer repeated her "Go paint" command a few times and then called Sammy to get a treat while Miss Stadelbacher changed the brush for a new color. Within about 20 minutes, the canvas was covered in swabs of blue, red, yellow and aqua.

Sammy made the canvas every time -- but the gallery didn't take any chances and had plastic taped to the wall behind the pup-level easel. Sometimes Sammy didn't head immediately for his easel, walking instead toward a group of children who squealed when the paintbrush came near. Except for a dab of purple on a cameraman's lens, all of Sammy's paint ended up where it belonged.

"It seems like a silly thing, but we're all amazed about it. How many dogs could do that?" says Miss Stadelbacher's mother, Elizabeth Stadelbacher, who attended the exhibition.

The audience was wowed.