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!