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In 2013, longtime animal lover and dog trainer Elise Lalor founded Monkey Tail Ranch and began a facility dog service program. Before that, Lalor worked with multiple nonprofits and founded Good Dog! Autism Companions, groups focused on training service animals.
“What I saw from those organizations and the ones that I was working with as a kind of a subcontractor was that they weren’t really using a holistic approach,” Lalor said. “They were delivering a dog and then they weren’t doing any type of follow-through or follow-up.”
Motivated to change the practices and approaches to raising, training and placing service dogs, Lalor opened Monkey Tail Ranch.
“I wanted to provide a more inclusive nonprofit that involved ongoing support with the dog and the family,” Lalor said.
At Monkey Tail, Lalor and a small team of dog trainers and volunteers breed and train Labrador retrievers for the program because of the breed’s empathetic nature, intelligence and friendly temperament. Before the dogs are accepted into the program, they go through puppy raisers, who expose them to different people and environments and help the team learn how the dogs react to certain situations.
“What we’re looking for is puppy raisers to say, ‘Oh, there was a loud noise and he didn’t like it,’ and that allows us to understand a little bit better the temperament of the dog and if the dog’s going to be able to make it in the program,” Lalor said.
Lalor said only a select few dogs make it into the program, but once she and her team are sure a dog has the right temperament, training does not take long. The length of training depends on whether the dog needs to learn how to respond to a specific disability.
“Someone with an anxiety attack, we might have to teach the dog how to know when an anxiety attack is coming and how to alert the owner on that,” Lalor said. “For schools, we have a lot more thresholds where we just need the right temperament and we have to have the right obedience.”
Once the dogs are ready, they are matched with handlers who have similar personalities and habits.
Aromas-San Juan School District Human Resources Director Anne Siri is the handler for Toaster, the district’s facility dog.
“Toaster is a more active dog and Anne is a more active human, so we wanted to pair those two,” Lalor said.
Siri, or “Mrs. Toaster” as the kids refer to her, said Toaster is “seen as a healer in the school and something that’s there to help them.”
Toaster regularly visits classrooms at both Aromas and San Juan and is often the subject of classroom lessons.
“Teachers have lesson plans and actually create lessons around Toaster,” Siri said. “Sometimes it’s a math lesson. A lot of times it’s group reading.”
Most notably, during the last school year, Toaster helped a second-grade nonverbal student at Aromas Elementary School gain confidence in his speaking ability.
“Toaster had been visiting his classroom all year and he was always reluctant to come and read, and towards the end of the year he came and he read a book to Toaster,” Siri said.
More recently, Toaster has been working with English learners because he is “non-judgmental.”
“I sit away from him and they’ll sit and read,” Siri said. “They’re not nervous and it helps the kids get confidence in reading and working on their English.”
Since his introduction to the school in March 2025, kids at Aromas and San Juan schools have gotten used to Toaster’s presence on campus, she said.
“He’s not this novelty that they have to come and see him all the time; he’s become part of the community,” Siri said. “To have a working dog is great, and it’s great companionship for me too.”
Hollister High introduced Shout, a five-year-old labrador retriever, in 2024, and she has been fundamental to the campus culture.
Hollister High School Director of Specialized Student Services and Special Education Paulette Cobb, Shout’s handler, said, “She loves the kids here, she loves the teenagers, she can’t wait to get to work.”
According to Cobb, Shout’s favorite part of the day is helping with the Baler Bridges and STEP programs.
“She goes in there, she checks in with all the kiddos and then she figures out who needs her support and she stays with them,” Cobb said.
Shout gauges which student needs support by poking her nose at people and sensing their energy, Cobb said.
“She pokes with her nose and then she really just sits there,” Cobb said. “She might lay down a little bit and look at you like, ‘Do you want to pet me?’ It’s interesting, she has some kind of an ability to know when something is going on or who needs her.”
At the start of the 2026 school year, Hollister High introduced U-Haul, another Monkey Tail Ranch dog, to take some pressure off Shout.
“All of the dogs have sort of a different way of supporting, depending on who they are, and so Shout has a kind of niche,” Cobb said. “She’s really good with calming and she’s not the super energetic, young dog that U-Haul is.”
Hollister High Assistant Principal Allison Musich is two-year-old U-Haul’s handler, introducing him to the school this year.
“This is kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Musich said. “You’re not going to get a dog like this probably ever again where they’re trained and he gets to come to work with me.”
Musich said U-Haul has not only been a big help in supporting students at the school, but he has also helped her slow down in her job and appreciate “the smaller moments” in her role.
She said she has been out of the classroom for four years, long enough that all of the students she once taught have already graduated. U-Haul has been a big help to her in forming connections with students.
“Sometimes as an assistant principal, maybe I am not super approachable, so he kind of helps smooth and create those connections,” Musich said. U-Haul “helps break down those walls where it’s something external for people to talk about and especially if they love animals.”
Monkey Tail Ranch’s work goes beyond training the animals. Once a facility dog is matched and placed with a handler, all dogs in the facility dog program can return to the ranch whenever needed and receive free boarding. In addition, Monkey Tail Ranch covers all medical expenses a dog might have.
Cobb recalled a time when Shout was feeling sick and Lalor and her team responded immediately with help.
“They were here in two minutes, they showed me how to take her temperature, they told me what to do and made an appointment at the vet,” Cobb said. “Their primary focus is not to make the dogs work, but to take care of the dogs so they can work.”
Monkey Tail Ranch’s Paws and Pour fundraiser was held on Sept. 12. Donations from the event will support facility dogs working in and outside the county, as well as dogs currently in training.
There are currently seven facility dogs working in the county. Sunday works at the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office. Linguine is located at Ladd Lane Elementary School. Spring Grove School has Memphis. Toaster visits multiple schools in the Aromas-San Juan School District. Hollister High has Shout and U-Haul. San Andreas Continuation High School will soon receive Verde.
“A dog that makes it through the program, then with the boarding, the vet care, the update training, the sending staff to the schools to do follow-up training, comes to about $100,000 for the life of the dog,” Lalor said.
Lalor said the ranch brings in about $250,000 in donations each year and operates at a yearly cost of $350,000. To offset some of the cost, Lalor boards and trains dogs outside the program and sells puppies from litters.
Lalor said an anonymous donor has pledged to match donations from fundraisers hosted by others on behalf of Monkey Tail Ranch. So far, the ranch has had two fundraisers hosted for it, one in Los Gatos and one in Gilroy. This year’s San Benito County Paws and Pour fundraiser was hosted by Ted Zanella, owner of Commercial Exteriors Inc.
Prior to the fundraiser, Lalor set a goal of $20,000, which will be matched to bring in a total of $40,000.
WhistlePig Whisky participated in the fundraiser, sending a representative to go over the different types of whisky offered at the event. Hollister’s own Chef David Jamrock participated in the event, pairing dishes with whisky. In addition, there was a cigar section to complement the night. Platinum donors received a bottle of whisky at the end of the night.
Event guests were able to purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win baskets donated by the facility dogs’ places of employment and outside organizations, such as San Juan Oaks Golf Club.
The Paws and Pour event was sold out. However, donations can be made on Monkey Tail Ranch’s website or mailed to:
Monkey Tail Ranch
1993 Orchard Road
Hollister, CA 95023
The BenitoLink Internship Program is a paid, skill-building program that prepares local youth for a professional career. This program is supported by Monterey Peninsula Foundation AT&T Golf Tour and Taylor Farms.
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