therapy/service animal?
I do not have a child with special needs nor am I expecting one(that I am aware of) but I do work in a life skills classroom and am married to an amazing man who does the same. He worked for an adult facility at one time and trained his lab to be a therapy dog, he is certified and is pretty cool. My question, from someone who has a passion for special needs children and animals, do any of you utilize a pet or service animal? For those of you who don't, why don't you? If it is a money thing, I have done some research and I've found that it can be rather pricey to get a therapy/service dog, would you if money was not an issue be interested in utilizing this for your children?
If you aren't very familiar with a service dog/therapy dog here is a little information. They can be trained for a specific task, like seeing eye dogs or seizure alert dogs but they can also just play a more relaxed role as a companion animal. Maxx, our lab, can turn lights on and off, close the door, and even open a door for someone that may need it. Our pup(he is actually a year and a half old), that we are working on getting certified, would love to just be there for someone and sit in their lap. I would consider him more of an emotional support dog.
I am in no way trying to offend or speak where I am not welcomed. I just would like some feedback from people who actually have special needs children.
"i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear"
-E.E. Cummings
(In Memory of Baby Beluga 3-21-10)
Re: therapy/service animal?
I recently watched a piece on therapy dogs. They help kids with physical therapy and also help them calm down - the dog is placed carefully on the child (legs or whatever) and "warm" them with their body heat. It was so touching. I personally would love something like that for my child, but you are right - these days I have to be pretty careful, which therapies I prioritize in terms of funds. Like, I would love to do music therapy for my child...but it just isn't up there priority-wise. Hopefully, when I become rich...:-)
Kudos to you guys for doing this, though. After watching, I'm a believer.
Well, it probably would not be suitable for my child, but I think they are great for those who can use them. I did recently read an article (might have been posted here) about families having lots of issues with their child's service animal not being allowed in school.
There is a therapy dog training facility in our area, and DH and I would actually like to sign up to be on the waiting list for the dogs that flunk out, because they tend to be great pets. (Just not quite up to being relied on for life-and-death needs).
Good for you for taking on this outreach program. Your work will mean so much to somebody!
We have friends who were on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and they got a service dog for their son with Prader-Willi syndrome (our son Dean has PWS as well). They said the dog is usually $15,000. This doesn't include all the usual expenses with pets of food, accessories, health care, etc. I just can't even imagine.
But for us, honestly, the biggest factor is allergies. We have a lot of dog allergies in the family and so it just wouldn't work. Without the allergies, money would be our next concern, but DH has rich relatives who I know would help.
Kudos to you! I've seen amazing things happen with animals and children, so we signed DD up for hippotherapy before she even came home (huge waitlist for that). As it turned out she had a spinal cord injury and couldn't do that.
I did contact a service animal group and ask if we could work out a deal to get periodic "visits" (which I volunteered to pay for OOP) from a service animal.
DD has deafblindness and there's not a ton of stuff that she finds amusing. I'd really like to expose her to a dog and dream that one day she'll have enough skills to be aided with stuff like walking across the street from a service animal. I'd love to see her gain independence from something like that! In the meantime, I'd like to expose her to animals who we know have been trained and aren't quite so likely to bite her hand off or "attack" like our neighbor's dogs have been trained to do.
I also thought it'd be a safe method to teach her some animal concepts. The agency seemed interested in helping us, but never followed up. For now, we visit a local farm were we can feel some of the animals and experience their habitats (touching the horse's hay, mud near the pigs, etc.)