{"id":338621,"date":"2026-05-30T04:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338621\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T04:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:02:15","slug":"new-canine-companion-for-long-beach-activist-former-city-councilwoman-liz-treston-herald-community-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338621\/","title":{"rendered":"New canine companion for Long Beach activist, former City Councilwoman Liz Treston | Herald Community Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many people in the Long Beach community know former City Councilwoman Liz Treston<\/a> to be an activist and a leader. But even superheroes need sidekicks \u2014 and Treston got one through Canine Companions<\/a>, a service dog provider, on May 15 at a service dog graduation in Medford.<\/p>\n

Treston, 65, uses a motorized wheelchair because of an accident which damaged her spinal cord more than three decades ago. Shortly after, she became involved with Canine Companions. Before being united with Lucas, a Labrador-Golden Retriever cross, she had a fellow Canine Companion graduate, MacGyver, who died last May.<\/p>\n

Without help from a service dog, Treston said going about her day-to-day is not easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like being re-paralyzed again without a service dog<\/a>,\u201d Treston said. \u201cMy independence was taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Bentzinger, public relations and marketing manager at Canine Companions, said they are committed to helping those in need, one canine at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proud of our many success stories from clients like Liz Treston, whose six Canine Companions service dogs have allowed her to live a more independent life,\u201d Bentzinger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The journey for Lucas and his 12 fellow doggy graduates began as 8-week-old puppies.\u00a0 Robin Liberty, Lucas\u2019 instructor, said volunteers raise the young canines until they are 18 months old, teaching them basics like potty training and proper etiquette in public spaces \u2014 which includes visits to public spaces such as grocery stores and movie theaters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do all the things they might encounter in their lives as a service dog,\u201d Liberty said.<\/p>\n

From 18 months, dogs like Lucas are trained over 40 commands by instructors, including picking up dropped items, flipping light switches and opening or closing doors. From the time he was a puppy, Liberty said, he was well-behaved and fit what Treston was looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiz was looking for a confident dog that would be happy to meet people while focusing on her needs,\u201d Liberty said. \u201cDuring our two-week team training class, it was apparent Lucas would be a great fit for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though they\u2019ve lived together for less than a month, Treston said, she can already feel her partnership with Lucas. Treston noted he weighs 58 pounds, which is slightly less than the 80 pounds MacGyver and her previous four service dogs weighed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Treston said that Lucas will accompany her in her community service quest, which includes her nonprofit, Long Beach COAD \u2014 a local network dedicated to disaster preparedness and community recovery \u2014 as well as her work advocating for those in need.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucas is small, mighty and perhaps a little bit mischievous,\u201d Treston said. \u201cBut he seems to like people a lot. He will get along in Long Beach very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberty, who has worked at Canine Companions for seven years, said the effort to match service dogs with people is a lot of hard work, but extremely rewarding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take these dogs and mold them with the hope that they\u2019ll do well in the world,\u201d Liberty said. \u201cWhen our service dogs are matched with their person and you see changes in their life, that\u2019s why we do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many people in the Long Beach community know former City Councilwoman Liz Treston to be an activist and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[9513,139597,131,133,132,4694,29769,126684,6850],"class_list":["post-338621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-canine-companion","tag-liz-treston","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-new-york","tag-people-with-disabilities","tag-service-dog","tag-wheelchair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}