Canines For Disabled Kids

Our Dogs

Canines for Disabled Kids mission is to sponsor dogs to assist disabled children with everyday tasks. Our goal is to support the highest quality assistance dogs to all qualified applicants within a reasonable amount of time. While the wait time can vary based on the needs of the individual; the current average wait can be about 2 years.

Assistance dogs are not family pets; they are working tools for their disabled partners. A variety of breeds, pure and mixed, and sizes, small through large, are used for assistance work.

All dogs are trained and matched by the NEADS training staff.

We sponsor dogs to assist clients in four types of situations.

Facilitation

What is it?

Facilitation is when a child, usually between the ages of 6 – 14, is placed in a 3 way canine partnership. The child, the assistance or social dog, and a parent work together in public environments as a team. The team is a full team only when all 3 partners are together. This means that a child is not taking the dog to school without the parent being with them full time and that the parent is not taking the dog to the grocery store without the child. When a facilitated assistance dog relationship works successfully with a child at a younger age it can help the child to use this tool more effectively to complete tasks independently thus encouraging the natural growth towards independence all children strive for. The role of the facilitator in this partnership is to supervise and make sure that both the child and the dog are working properly together. He or she help to remind the child to give the correct commands as clearly as possible (as possible for that individual), to reward the dog appropriately and to follow through on instruction. He or she also monitor the dog to help refocus the dog on the child, assure the dog does not forget his/her manners in public spaces and completes the exercise as instructed. Facilitators attend training with the child. In the case of Social dogs there are 2 days of facilitator training prior the child entering the training. He or she learns the specifics of the team – what and how to supervise. He or she learns how to help the bonding process, which is on going between child and canine. He or she assure proper care of the dog in grooming, feeding and playtime. A facilitator must also be responsible to make sure the team does their homework – practicing the skills needed to make their team a success. The goal of facilitation is to have children with a variety of physical disabilities learn to use their canine tool as a regular and productive part of their lives so that when they are about 14 or 15 years old they can retest as non-facilitated teams to be able to travel and work with their assistance dogs as full teams, going to school, the movies with friends, out to dinner and more. Even though not all children are able to move to the goal of non-facilitation, the aid given by their canine partner is valuable. Some children are effected cognitively as well as physically by their disability to a point they cannot assume full responsibility for their canine partner. These children will continue to work with their dogs under the facilitation of the parents. Social dogs do not have the goal of moving beyond facilitation. All children are evaluated on an individual basis by the trainers and are considered for retesting only after the family has made the request.

We sponsor:

Hearing dogs to help those who are deaf or hard of hearing by responding to sounds such as a knock on the door, alarm clocks, and the child’s name by alerting their human partners to these sounds. Hearing dogs work best in a non-facilitated situation; when the child can respond independently from a parent to the information provided by the dog. The hearing dog must respond and alert their partner whenever they hear a trained sound. This is sometimes not practical for a family with young children.

Traditional Service dogs and Laptop Service Dogs to help those who use wheelchairs and walkers by picking up almost any dropped item, turning light switches on or off, and carrying items. Laptop Dogs are a smaller version of the traditional service dog with the agility to jump up on counters, retrieve items, and then to jump with the item in the owner's lap. Social dogs to help those children who cannot assume total responsibility for a working dog but who can benefit from the therapeutic value of a dog. These dogs are always facilitated by the nature of their work and encourage social interaction between the child, the dog and other individuals. Due to recent reinterpretations in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), dogs for therapeutic assistance may be denied public access, including schools, and are not covered by the ADA.

Service dogs for the classroom are trained to assist special educators, teachers and therapists who work with physically, mentally, or emotionally disabled children. They are integrated into the current educational curriculum as motivators and serve as an additional innovative teaching tool for the children. The dog is maintained by and is a permanent commitment for the teacher, educator or therapist. Therapists often use these dogs in their sessions to help open a line of communication, act as a calming influence and diffuse stressful situations.