We're home and lovin' the holiday season.

We are finally home and settling in, although it still seems a little unreal to think about all we've done in the last 3 weeks. Since we didn't have a computer with us in Ohio, we were unable to update our blogs. Coming home less than 2 weeks before Christmas made it even more complicated for me to get to the computer and try to tell the LONG story of our adventure. So this is a watered down version starting from the beginning.

Dallon and I flew out of Portland on Friday Nov 28th, the day after Thanksgiving. We arrived late that night (very early on Saturday). After a little rest, and with it being a nice day out, we decided to head to the Columbus Zoo.
The zoo was massive! I heard later that it usually takes more than one day to see it all. We only hit about 1/3 of the exhibits before the crowds started pouring in for their nightly "wildlights". The zoo was covered in Christmas lights and playing Christmas music. Once the crowds came in, it was too much for Dallon, and we were pretty tired from our travels anyway. Above is a picture of Dallon with the world's largest python named Fluffy.

Dallon eating the cookie he got to decorate in a building where they had model trains of all sizes set up in little villages.

He loved the aquariums that we got to see, and this alligator snapping turtle especially caught his eye.

On Monday night Chris and Jace arrived, and early Tuesday we headed to 4 Paws for our first day of training, and to meet Bianca! After what seemed like forever, it was finally our turn to meet our new dog. She came out happy to see anyone with treats. Dallon really enjoyed being the treat giver. She didn't get much time with us before it was lunchtime, but after lunch we did our first obedience work with her. The first day was not what we expected! We didn't realize that we actually needed to build a relationship with our dog before she would willingly listen to us. That's where the treats came in handy.

We did take her back to our room with us that night. And we had a great time playing with and getting to know her.

Each day was a little different. The first couple of days were all about obedience. On the third day we started tracking and going to the mall for our public access work. It was quite a scene to see our group along with all of the kids and 11 dogs in the mall!

Jace being a show-off in the mall play area. He's such a ham!

We also continued our obedience work each day, some in the morning at the training center, and we were required to practice on our own each night. It was amazing to see the change in Bianca once she got to know us. She bonded with Chris really quickly, and soon was picking our Dallon and Jace in a crowd.

Tracking was an experience. It was cold, wet, warm, windy, you name it we did it at least once. One morning while we were waiting it was snowing, and each snow flake was so perfectly formed, we had to take some pictures. It was beautiful, but I don't know about living in that unpredictable Ohio weather all year!

Waiting to go tracking. The boys weren't too sure about having the dog squeezed in with them in the back seat. She would get SOOOO excited about tracking--which is what we want, so we didn't discourage the over-excitement when she would get really anxious waiting for our turn.

Jace and Chris had to head back to Oregon on Dec 10 because Chris had to be at work on the 11th and 12th. So for the last 3 days, I had a couple of volunteers come to training with Dallon and me. It turned out to be a great test of Bianca's tracking skills. Since she didn't know the volunteers, we knew for sure she was tracking Dallon's scent those last couple of days--and she pulled hard and knew what she was looking for!

Graduation finally come on Dec 12th. We did our public access test at the mall and got ourselves ready to go so we could head to Columbus after graduation was over. We did the final paperwork to make Bianca officially Dallon's certified service dog and waited for everyone else to complete their paperwork. It was very hectic, but we survived.

More graduation pictures.

On Saturday morning we got up early and headed to the aiport. Our flights were long, and extra cramped with a dog at our feet. But generally it went very well. We arrived in Portland at about 1pm and after being picked up with Chris' mom and dad, going to his grandparent's house to pick up our car, getting packed up and fed, we were on the road a little after 2:30pm. We made one quick stop, and as we were driving into Hermiston the heavy rain turned to snow, and it hasn't really stopped since!

This is our 3rd winter in Hermiston, and 2 of the 3 have had a significant amount of snow--which is not that typical for the area. Dallon went to one day of school this week, and the rest of the week was cancelled. In total we've gotten over a foot so far, and it is supposed to start again on Sunday and continue until Wednesday.

The boys and dog have been loving the snow, and it really makes it feel like Christmas. We did a little shopping, but not much since we've received so much already this year! We are in the Christmas spirit, and have gotten our tree up and decorated and are happily awaiting a beautiful white Christmas this year!

Happy Holidays, and a huge THANK YOU to everyone we know and love. We are so blessed to have known and been connected to such generous people.

God Bless, and Merry Christmas!

Ready to go!

We've worked out all of our funding issues, and today I am making the last reservation. We are so blessed! A trip that was originally supposed to cost more than $5000 is now costing us just $3000. We have been able to work out every problem. It has been amazing to see so much generosity from everyone around us. We are so lucky to know such amazing people. On Sunday several people at church gave us donations, and we went home with over $700.

One family who has 4 children and have been struggling with a job change gave us an envelope that said, "We wish you the best of luck with your training. May the Lord bless your family. After hearing about your needs, our children rushed to their banks to contribute. Thanks for this wonderful opportunity to share." Inside was $108 and several quarters, nickels, and dimes. That family moved to Boise on Monday. They were in the middle of a lot of their own problems and stress and they took some of what they had and shared it with us.

Dallon and I fly out on Friday afternoon. I am anxious to get going. I'll try to find a computer to post to while we are in Ohio to keep everyone up to date. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has helped us on this journey. We are overwhelmed by how blessed we are to have been able to accomplish the the task of raising over $15,000 in only 8 months. We will never forget this experience and the lessons it has taught us about faith, gratitude, service, love and hope.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Dallon

Each child going to training receives a letter from their dog. We were the only special needs placement, so we were the only ones to know who (and what) our dog was before yesterday. We were the last in our class to receive our letter, which was fine because we already knew who our dog was. This is the letter we received late last night from Bianca.

Dear Dallon,
Finally. I thought it would never be my turn. Well I guess someone had to be last but really those guys sure took their time! I am so excited that finally I will get to meet you. I have been dreaming about you every night. Really it has been cool because while everyone was waiting for their matches I kept humming to myself and thinking there are advantages to being special like knowing who your match is months before the rest! I am so glad you looked at me and decided to accept me as your partner. I am so blessed to have you. I have been working extra hard because every time when I am working I am thinking, I am doing this for Dallon! Now all that hard work is coming to an end and we will be together and all will be perfect. How cool is that! I think you already know I am a Black Lab and my birthday is 4-18-2007 and I am a girl. I don't have to ask if you mind because you picked me just the way I am so I know you do not mind I am a girl. See ya really soon, up close and personal and a kiss in your face! xoxoxoxoxoxoxo Bianca

A Few Changes

So with only 9 days till Dallon and I fly out to Ohio, and with $1500 left to fundraise we began digging deeper for more ways to save money. We ended up being steered toward a low-cost housing option in Xenia. There is a convention/retreat center a couple miles from the training center which has some dormatory style housing available. It is very cheap! For the full 2 weeks of our stay it will only cost $270! This saves us a massive amount of lodging costs. The best part we found was that the room is really a suite. It has two bedrooms (one with a queen bed, one with 3 twin beds) and a private bath for your suite. There are no meals provided, but there is a fridge and a microwave so we can keep breakfast/lunch items there easily. This will increase our food costs, but we figure is saves us about $500 overall.

So we have about $1000 left to raise in 9 days. We still need to rent a car and come up with our "other" expenses like food, gas, training supplies, etc. We are going to contact some church members in Ohio to see if we could possibly "borrow" a vehicle for a much smaller price than renting one. The cheapest rental car that will fit our needs that I've found is $675 (without the extra insurance or taxes). Keep your fingers crossed that we'll be able to find something for much less. If we can decrease that cost, we won't need to raise as much in the end.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us out. We are almost there! Only 12 more days until training begins! All of our arrangements in Ohio have really come together better than I had anticipated, and for much less! At this point (if we still rent a car) the trip is costing just less than $3500. The original estimates we were given was $5000-6000!

In total to date, we have raised about $15000 in just 8 months! Thank you!!!

Time is closing in!

I can't believe how fast the last 90 days have gone by! We leave for Ohio in 16 days. We are still needing donations. Just a few dollars will help, coupons for food or travel, anything you can do will make a difference. Thanks for all of the love and support from eveyone thus far--and we are almost there!

Getting Closer!

Sorry its been so long since I've posted an update. A couple of weeks ago we received a very generous donation from someone at church--$1000! Thank you so much Jeff and Lori! So with the other donations we've recieved, we are up to about $1100 out of the $2800 we still needed to raise. We have just 3 weeks left till we leave for training, but we have almost enough to pay for our hotel stay. We do need additional nights in a hotel in Columbus near the airport for our arrival and departure days. We still need to come up with money for a rental car, and that is our last big expense after hotel.

Thank you all for the support and donations! We're getting there, slow but sure. We're getting very excited about having Bianca finally be home with us.

Our flights are all reserved!

We've reserved all 4 of our plane tickets now. Thank you to all who have donated, we truly appreciate it. Dallon and I will fly out of Portland on the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving, then Chris and Jace will fly out to meet us on Monday December 1st. We were lucky enough to find some great deals on tickets. We are flying separately because of Chris' work schedule mostly--he'll be returning home on the 10th instead of the 13th of December also for work. we are flying into Columbus because the tickets were hundreds of dollars cheaper per person--so it means we need to stay in Columbus a few nights surrounding our arrival and departure dates. There are several decent but inexpensive hotels near the airport, and we will likely use priceline.com for a better deal.

A list of things we still need to pay for before training:
Hotel in Xenia: $1200
Rental car and fuel for 2 weeks: $800
Other expenses like food, shuttle fees to and from airport, and training supplies: $375
Hotel stays in Columbus: $450

Total: $2825

We started out thinking we needed to raise about $5000--with the good deals on flights and hotels we've gotten the cost down to about $4000 and we've raised enough for all 4 tickets and a about another $100! We've got about 1 month to go, and its sneeking up on us quickly because of the holidays.

Thanks again to everyone who has donated and helped us out in other ways--we are truly grateful!

Hotel Details

We have reservations from November 30 to December 13 at the Homewood Suites by Hilton. They gave us a fantastic discount and our rate is ony $85 per night. They include a daily breakfast, and dinner Monday through Thursday. They also donate $3 per night to 4 Paws! They are conveniently located practically across the street from 4 Paws, cutting down on our gas costs. We may end up changing the arrival date depending on our flights, but for now we are planning on arriving in Xenia on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We may need to move that date up or back, we'll see when we get our flights booked.

Other ways you can help!

If you don't have cash or gifts that you can donate for our travel expenses, here are some other ideas that could really help us out!

**Coupons or discount codes for a rental car
**Airline miles for United Airlines
**Coupons for meals at local restaraunts in Xenia, OH (you can google the address)
**Pass along our donation information and cause to local charities or groups--like Mason lodges, Elks Club, Kiwanis, etc.
**Ask if you can do a penny drive at a nearby business or school
**Pass along information to high school organizations like Key Club to see if they might be interested in doing a fundraiser/service project

We only have 48 more days to get our travel squared away. I'm sending letters to some local charities in hopes that they may be able to help us out. Also, if you are looking for a tax deduction for your donation, you can give the money to a charity who is willing and able to collect donations and send them on to us.

Every little bit counts! We've finished raising money for Bianca, now we just need to bring her home!

We've chosen a hotel

The Homewood Suites nearby 4 Paws is offering a variety of "perks" for 4 Paws families to stay with them. They are affordable ($130 per night for a suite or 2 rooms) and they will be donating to 4 Paws for each night one of their families stay. They offer kitchenette's in each room and also offer free dinner Mon-Thur, and breakfast 7 days a week (which I've heard is great, and they aim to please). The meals and kitchenette could really save us some money! They have even dedicated a portion of the hotel for 4 Paws families so that there are no other pets in the same section of the hotel (which I guess can be a problem).

If you would like to help us with our hotel stay, here is the link to the gift certificate page for the hotel. http://homewoodsuites.hilton.com/en/hw/promotions/hw_guestcertificates/index.jhtml?adId=HWGuestCerts,featoffer&cid=OM,HW,Guestcert,Specoffer

THANKS! We'll be setting up our reservations soon.

Added Links

I have been adding links to the sites of other 4 Paws families. Some are fundraising, some are going to training soon, some already have their Service Dog at home. The children suffer from a wide variety of disabilities. The links are toward the bottom of the right hand column, please check them out. There are some amazing stories, and you may want some Kleenex handy if you're a crier.

Update

Sorry its been a while since my last update. School started, Dallon broke his arm, and we've had a stomach bug! So far we've raised $144 for our travel expenses plus the 2 United Airlines tickets.

We only have a little more than 2 months to come up with the rest we need. If you know anyone who would be willing to make even a small donation, please pass along Dallon's information.

Thanks for all the support, and we're getting really excited for our service dog to finally come home with us--and for Christmas too!

Travel Expense Donations

OK, so I've got a bank account set up just for our travel expenses. It is at US Bank and under mine and Dallon's names. It is a donation account (like one for medical expenses) and you can make a donation at any US Bank branch, or by mailing a donation to a branch. If you go into a local branch, get a deposit slip, fill it out with Dallon's name and our address (if you don't have our address email me and I'll get it to you--I don't want to post it on the web). The teller will do the rest.

THANK YOU to Chris' mom and dad for donating 2 US Airways tickets for us to use. We'll book them as soon as we are able to book all of our flights at the same time so we'll be able to better coordinate travel if we have to use more than one airline or airport to save some $$.

Things are looking great! We're getting excited for school to start. The next 3 months are going to fly by! And then before you know it, 2008 will be over and we'll be getting ready for Kindergarten 2009. I still can't believe how close it is.

December Class here we come!

I just received confirmation that we are in the December training class in Ohio. Class runs Tuesday December 2nd to Friday December 12th. With a late Thanksgiving, that means we'll be traveling Sunday or Monday after Thanksgiving. Its a little daunting to think about holiday travel, but I'm sure it will work out.

I just thought I would share the good news!

Travel Expenses

Now that the fundraising for 4 Paws is so close to ending, we need to start raising funds for our travel expenses. We've estimated that we will need approximately $5000 for travel expenses related to training in December (we are assuming we are in the December class because we have not been told otherwise, but have not gotten final confirmation yet.) The funds will cover our flights (our flight to Ohio will most likely fall on Thanksgiving weekend which makes it a little more expensive and more difficult to book), hotel stay, food, training supplies (leads, vests, treats, etc), and rental car for the 13 days and 12 nights we'll be in Ohio.

Just to make it clear:

Donations made for travel expenses do NOT go to 4 Paws, and because we are individuals receiving the donation it is not tax deductible. This phase of fundraising is seperate from our funds for 4 Paws and money sent to 4 Paws in excess of our $13,000 goal cannot be forwarded on to us.

So any money donated for traveling expenses needs another place to go. I will be setting up a savings account for this purpose, and I will post the information here when I have done so. I have also set up a paypal account for travel expenses. Not only can we receive transfers from other paypal accounts, but we can pay for some of our reservations that way also.

The email address for Dallon's paypal account is dallon4paws@yahoo.com .

I will post here about our progress toward our travel expense goal.

Any money that we raise which is not needed for our travel expenses will be donated for 4 Paws.

Our Furry Friend! Meet Bianca

This is Bianca, and she is a black lab born in April '07. She was rescued from an animal shelter in Ohio and did the Rover Rehab Program. Karen at 4 Paws says, "Bianca is a phenomenal dog who was WELL loved at the prison. She is so good in fact that they moved her to beginner handlers so they would have it easy."

Bianca is a special needs placement dog. When an otherwise great dog who has almost completed training has a mild health issue, they are offered to the currently fundraising families as a special needs placement. If you are willing to accept a special needs placement it can dramatically speed up the process of receiving your dog. Everyone who is willing responds, if the available dog is a match with your child, you are partnered and go to the training that corresponds with the dog's training. We will likely be going to training in December for Bianca, but we have not had a final confirmation on our training date yet. This will cut approx 6 months off of our waiting time. And Dallon will be getting his friend for Christmas (and his birthday which is Dec 26th). However this does cut our time to raise travel expenses dramatically.

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Bianca has mild hip dysplasia which means the head of the femoral bone is not fully covered by the hip. Typically mild hip dysplasia does not affect the dog through their life until senior years with arthritis. This is especially true now with the supplements that help increase joint health. Since she has been diagnosed so early, we will have a big head start on the supplements and joint health--making it even less likely that she will be affected, there is only a 12% chance that she will be affected during her working life.

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When I replied about the special needs placements that included Bianca I felt very strongly that this was the route we should take. Getting Dallon's dog accepted into the school system will take some time, and this way we'll have more time before he goes into kindergarten in 2009. I love that she is a rescue dog and that she did the Rover Rehab Program. She is a beautiful lab, and I've heard that she is outgoing. She is perfect for Dallon.

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So we are now starting to plan for our travel expenses. It is going to be more expensive than I originally thought (mostly becaue of airfares). December training class starts on Dec 2nd and goes until Dec 12th. We will need a hotel room for at least 12 nights. The flights may be difficult because we will be flying out just after Thanksgiving. We will also need to rent a car big enough for us and a dog. We also need supplies for Bianca and Dallon--vests for tethering, brushes, leashes, a crate, toys, etc.

Finally an Update!

OUR RUMMAGE SALE WAS A SUCCESS!

I am happy to report that our rummage sale raised $1112 plus an additional donation of $500 came from Chris' grandparents, and with the max matching grant from Walmart, the total for the weekend was $2612! That puts our total at approximately $10,800 and only $2200 to go! I am going to submit an application to our local hospital foundation for the remaining amount which makes awards in September, if that goes through--we'll be done!

The rummage sale went fantastically well. We had so much help, and more volunteers than we ever expected right there with us the entire time! We filled the gym with donations, so many that afterwards we took 3 truck loads of left overs to Goodwill! We made almost 200 sales, and we still need to cash in all of the can donations (that might take a while).

The bad news is that all that time on my feet caused a stress fracture through an old fracture in my foot. Too many workouts in bad shoes leading up to it I guess. I spent Sunday morning in the ER, and I'm doing fine now. We've had lots of help, and I'm glad I made it throught the sale!

We are so excited to be nearing the end of this part of our journey, once we're done raising money for 4 Paws, we'll find out what training class we'll be in, and start raising money for our travel/training expenses.



THANK YOU to all of those who volunteered to help with this event, the set up, the location, the organizing, sales, take down, all of it couldn't have been done in such a small amount of time without all of your help. A big thanks to Shane Pratt, principal of West Park Elementary for allowing us access to the facility! And thank you to all of those who came, spent a little money or donated their items, it has made a huge difference for us, and we truly appreciate it!

CNN Heroes!

CNN Heroes is doing a story on 4 Paws and its founder Karen Shirk! The story will air during Larry King Live on thursday July 17th, and will repeat from 11am -12 pm on Friday, 11am-12pm and 5pm-6pm on Saturday (I don't know what time zone! I don't have cable, so I'll be looking for it online). It will also be on the web site with a written article, slide show, and additional footage. ( In addition, there will also be an article on CNN.com and will include links to the story, two additional ‘web extra’ pieces and a link to the 4 Paws website. All of this information will also be up until the end of the year on the HEROES website at www.cnn.com/ heroes.)

I'm going to try to get someone to record it for me, but if I can't I'm sure it will be just as good online!

I'm in the process of advertizing for our Rummage Sale coming up. I'm hoping for a good turnout! We'll see how it goes.

Our total is officially $8,175--all of the previously pending donations have posted and I don't know if there are any more pending at this time.

Only $4,825 to go!

Upcoming Event!

We will be having a rummage sale, can drive, and possibly a raffle/auction on July 19th. It will be held at West Park Elementary in Hermiston from 9am to 1pm. We will be there starting at 7am to take donations in addition to any that are made beforehand. More details to come.

No total yet for the last couple of weeks, we're just waiting to get numbers. I'll post as soon as I hear about it!

THANKS

Update

We got a total this week, we are up another $1,025 for a total of $8,175 that we have raised for 4 Paws! We are making a lot of progress. Thanks to all who made donations!

Grant update!

We received confirmation today that Williams Natural Gas will be awarding us a grant for $5000! It should arrive in a few days...we are very excited that we are now at a total of $7,150 (including a cash donation that was made recently). That means we only have $5,850 to go. We are hoping that our next fund raiser will be a big success and get us even closer to our goal.

Update

Hello Again!

We got a new total this week. It was $2050. We have received another $100 that will be mailed in this week. We sent out an email, hoping that it will get us some more "small" donations. Every little bit counts. If you get the email--please pass it on!

We are still waiting to hear back from Williams and the grant that we applied for there. We'll let you know ASAP when that happens!

We are out of school, and have been working on potty training, and it has gone MUCH better than expected. The only catch is that he has to be nude all day. If he is nude he goes on his own, but if he has clothes on he just goes in his clothes, then runs to the bathroom. But its summer, so he can run around naked for a while :)

We are in the beginning stages of planning an event for July 19th. We still need to OK the location, but if all goes well, we should have a successful event. We are planning to have a massive yard sale with donations from church members, and a can drive/drop-off. We are also hoping to have a auction/dinner/raffle soon afterwards--so we can use the yard sale to advertise and sell tickets. its about 6 weeks out, so we have some time to plan. Hopefully it will go off without too much trouble!

Thanks for all fo the help, love and support!

Last Day of School

Dallon's last day of school was yesterday. We made a gift for his teachers and used this image for the Thank you cards. He wouldn't show me his face behind the sign, so I had to use an extra picture from a different day.

He really seemed to enjoy school this year more than last year. I think it was because he had a lot more time to get use to the routine of it. The last couple of days were pretty rough, I think he was a little burned out. He hasn't had a break from his regular classroom days since March. Wednesday when I picked him up, he REALLY wanted to ride the bus with his friends. When the bus door closed he fell to his knees and said,"Oh no! Bus!" He was soooo disappointed, it was heart breaking to watch him be so sad about riding the bus. I guess next year we'll have to consider letting him ride the bus to school.

His teacher will be moving to Astoria for next school year, and I am sad. She has been a great teacher for him. He had her last year also, so that makes it even harder to think of taking him to school with a new teacher. We will really miss her. We are hoping he will have some of the same aids for next year, he has really responded to them also.

New total

We are offically up to $2000 now. And with the pending grant from Williams, we may have as much as $7000 by the end of next month for sure. We need to get some solid plans in place for more fundraisers, but I'm guessing it will be summer before that actually happens. Summer is coming a little earlier than expected. Dallon's last day of school with be the 22nd instead of the 29th. It only cuts the school year short by 2 days, and I'm not sure the reasoning behind it. On the brighter side, we'll have more time to put toward fundraising and other activities at home. We'll be doing the STAR program at home with Dallon over the summer. I am excited to get it started--it seems like it will be perfect for us.

Update

I applied for a "Home Grown Giving" grant from Chris' employer (Williams Natural Gas), and it sounds like we might be able to get the maximum amount, $5000! We'll know within 20 days. We did get a total yesterday, and unfortunately it is the same as the last one..$1580. Nothing else has cleared the banks since the 18th. Hopefully I'll get more grant work done this week. We have also distributed more flyers throughout the community. We focused on the veterinary clinics, pet groomers, and main street businesses. Maybe we'll get a boost of interest from all of that.

Differences between Service dogs and Therapy dogs

I wanted to clarify something for all of those who are confused about the type of dog we are receiving from 4 Paws. We are getting a Service Dog, not a Therapy Dog. There are a number of differences between the two types, so I thought I would share some of the major points.

Seeing Eye dogs and Autism Assistance dogs are both types service dogs. They are specifically trained to help one person who is disabled under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) mitigate their disability to gain independence. Therapy dogs are trained to interact with many people, but not one particular person.

SD generally receive training of 200 hours to be certified. 4 Paws dogs each receive over 500 hours of advanced training after their basic training is complete. Seeing eye dogs receive over two years of training! TD, on the other hand, need to show aptitude but do not require any formal training.

SD are very expensive to train. There are few organizations with 501c3 designation that are recognized to do so. TD can be trained through 4H! The dog gets trained and the kid gets a ribbon - sounds like a win/win.

Access tests must be passed in order for your dog to be given SD status. TD have temperament scales, but there are no tests.

There are many different types of SDs. Some of the specific types include seeing eye, hearing ear, autism assistance, drug traffic alert, mobility assistance, bomb sniffing, and seizure alert dogs. There are not specific types of therapy dogs, as they are not trained to assist someone with a specific disability.

SD live with the same person who they are trained to assist. This does not mean they are always "on the job." It means they are "on call." TD live with handlers (generally) who take their TD to hospitals, schools, nursing homes, etc. to enrich those peoples' lives at scheduled times.

Therapy dogs are NOT granted Carte Blanche public access. Deny a certified Service Dog access to any public place and you will be looking at a law suit. There are laws that protect and grant access to SDs. They are Federal Laws, so individual states cannot interfere with them, and it isn't good PR to deny access to a diabled person and their highly trained service dog.

SDs are required to be highly intelligent, adaptable, problem solving, lovable companions to one person that helps them mitigate their disability. SDs are working dogs. They have a Doggie Doctorate. TDs are lovable but do not necessarily have to be little Einsteins! TDs are wonderful pets who are often shared with other people who benefit from their companionship.

Hope that clears some things up for anyone with any doubts as to why this dog is so expensive, and why we have to travel to Ohio to get it. We are very enthusiastic about the day when we will have this great resource available to us 24/7 !!

Dallon's Great Progress

Dallon has made AMAZING progress over the last couple of months. His speech is coming along very nicely, and he seems much more aware of what is going on around him. He points out birds and animals everywhere. When he sees a boat on the river, he says, "pirates! oh no!" He says some really funny things. He also associates things he sees with things at home and tries to tell me about them. Its kind of like trying to figure out a riddle. You have a couple of clues, and it doesn't make much sense at first, but once you figure it out it makes perfect sense. He has a full month of school in April--no breaks for teacher training, or little holidays, or anything else--so he has been falling into a much better pattern and seems to be happier to go to school most days. We had his 6 month review last week, and his teachers were thrilled about his great progress. His speech therapy sessions have been going much better also. He is talking much more, and doens't want to spend the whole time on the computer repeating everything it says. All of this progress gives us a lot of hope. He still has a long way to go to be age appropriate in his social skills and speech, but he has made huge strides over the last year.

New Total

Ok so I found out how to get Walmart to match fundraiser money. The customer service desk didn't have a clue the day we did our bake sale. Unfortunately because of the mix up, we were unable to get the matching funds for that fundraiser (because we didn't have the paperwork, and didn't have a signature from the appropriate walmart employee when we did the event). Good to know for future reference. All of the other pending donations have posted! So our official total is $1580, and we have other donations that are pending as well (I don't know the amounts). We will be doing a lot more fundraising now that it is warmer and there will be many more community activities going on. I'll keep you posted!

Fox Morning Show

Fox had a story on their morning show this morning! The link to see the show is http://www.mandjshow.com/videos/dogs-curing-autism . It only shows the first segment, the second segment had a Dr. who was an autism therapy expert of some kind who basically validated the use of a service dog for children with autism, though she did mention that it is not for everyone (which we all agree). They did not actually talk to Karen about how they match and place dogs, which was a disappointment. However, it was a wonderful segment for raising awareness and giving more exposure to 4 Paws!

World Autism Day

Today is world autism day. Most major news networks and shows are doing specials today. Yesterday there was a story on Good Morning America and today CNN is devoting the entire day to autism awareness. Fox's morning show will have a special apperance by Karen Shirk the founder of 4 Paws and a 4 Paws family with their dog on Monday April 7th. 4 Paws has also been contacted by the Ellen Degeneres Show recently too! Hopefully all of this great exposure will help many 4 Paws families reach their fundraising goals!

Totals

We received a total today, and we have a few more donations and money that is on its way from the bake sale we had and the total of all of those is $1786. So we are making some headway. I've been given a couple more contacts for fundraising ideas, and I'll be running those down today or tomorrow. Thanks again!

Awaiting new totals and Good Morning America

This morning ABC's Good Morning America did a story on Autism service dogs--and specifically they used 4 Paws families for their story. They also had some shots of the most recent training that took place at 4 Paws. To see/read the story click on this link http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/TurningPoints/story?id=4563899&page=1 .

We are waiting to hear what our most recent total amounts are. Hopefully we have great news! The young women in our local church have informed us that they are planning to do a dinner/auction for Dallon. I will post the details as soon as I get them!

First event a success!

We had our first little fund-raising event yesterday. We were originally planning to do a small bake sale on Friday night at a city Easter Egg Hunt. Instead we ended up doing our bake sale at Walmart. Between 11:30am and 2:00pm we sold most of our baked goods, and came away with $350+ !!! I was amazed at the generosity of the people who gave. After Walmart matches our funds (which I am still trying to figure out) we should be sending in just over $700 from only a little over 2 hours of a bake sale! Thank you to all those who baked goods and helped out. And a huge thank you to those who gave!

Slow Start

We've gotten off to a slow start with our fundraising. I got our first total today (it only includes what has already cleared the bank) of $80. Its a start, but we definitely have our work cut out for us. I am going to talk to Hermiston Parks and Rec about some ideas tonight at my city volleyball game--one of the managers is on my team. Hopefully we'll get things up and going quickly now that we've gotten the work out locally.

I am also going to be taking flyers and brochures to local businesses. I am going to hit the veterinary clinics and any other pet related stores, as well as the downtown business and restaraunts.

I've gotten a quote from the local T-shirt place to make shirts with sponsers on them. If anyone would like to buy space on the back of the shirts, let me know. We haven't figured out how much we'll be charging for space on the shirts yet (we need to figure out how many we can fit first), I'll post and let you know!

Thanks for so much support, we have been really touched by everyone's willingness to help.

4 Paws for Dallon

I will try to update this blog often for anyone who will be following our 4 paws adventure!