Saturday 29 July 2017

Assistance Dogs for ASD kids

Do you have an AD? that's short for Assistance Dog better know in America as Service Dogs.

Assistance Dogs can perform a range of tasks for people living with disabilities, an Assistance Dog is not only man’s best friend but a lifeline for many people & their families.
Every Assistance Dog undergoes tailored training to meet the individual needs of their new owner. They support people living with physical disabilities, autism, post-traumatic stress and dementia, as well as schools and care facilities.
I have been learning so much about this since becoming friends online with a lady who is self-training a dog to become her sons AD.
Its such a long & sometime hard journey when self-training, with help Providers & trainers a dog can grow up or be adopted into a family for the purpose of becoming an Assistance Dog for one of the family members.
In this ladies case she is training the dog for her son who is age 10. He helps and learns as they go so he will know more about this dog who will become his best friend then anyone else in the world.
I see photos and update on facebook about them and it seems so wonderful.

So I found myself asking why an Assistance Dog?
What would we need one for?   How would my son's life better from having an AD and not just a well trained family pet? I came to the conclusion that it would have a place in this family, an AD wold improve my sons life very much so and in turn improve our whole family.
This is Sandy she is our 10 yr old Dane with our son.
Never really trained more then sit, heal this dog in her old age she has became the perfect calm company our son has responded too. Sandy is the reason we came to the final decision of an AD as we could see the prospects ( yes she was watched as to not eat the sand which she wouldn't do anyway) 
Everywhere I look I can see how an assistance dog could be there, working and supporting our son.
As a family we put in applications & paperwork to try and get support & sponsors for help with the big journey of training a dog and you know what? Every time I have to fill out a piece of paper or online form about the reasons why we wanted to do this it was so easy, so easy to have the reasons just flow out and that has to mean something doesn't it? I think so :)
So we wait for the red tape to be sorted but please stay tuned for updates



Sandy dog helping play 


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