therapy dogs and fundraising

Post Reply New Topic

After a visit from a woman who runs a charity at the weekend, we have decided to get a therapy dog for DS6 - he absolutely adores dogs and is desperate for one of his own. At the moment, he keeps patting his sister and rubbing his face on her head and tries to get the cat to shadow him - none of this is working particularly well.

We decided to get a therapy dog because we are hoping it will help mainly with anxiety, insomnia, socialisation and while we know a 'regular' dog will be good, we don't have the knowledge, time or energy to train a dog to this level ourselves. We want to get as much benefit as we can.

The hitch is that DS won't qualify for a free assistance dog as he is far too high functioning. This charity requires that you fund raise the money and therapy dogs cost $5,500 Australian.

Anyone have any kind of experience in this (or any kind of fundraising)? DS and I have been in Australia for 10 years and while we have some family and friends, we don't have a great network - certainly not enough to raise this kind of money. We will pay in any residual amount owing but it would be great to raise as much as we can.

Also, I would love to hear people's experience with therapy dogs..

TIA

You could train a suitable dog to perform the functions, the agency in australia may aid in this, you will need to ask. Otherwise there are many reference articles than can be sourced and worked on together with a dog trainer with a suitable attitude if you don't have any experience yourself. This would be much cheaper than raising the amount needed, at AUS$5500 is a small proportion of total cost and would still be largely subsidised by the charity.

I can offer you some basic advice if you are interested in this route.

Shellfish, I do think a dog is a wonderful idea for an aspie; I would be completely lost without mine. I can see a specialized dog for a blind person, but why do you need a specially trained dog for an aspie? Dogs don't have to be trained to provide acceptance and uncritical love, which are what I think an aspie needs most from a dog.

What dogs do need is to be socialized to live in a house, which includes potty training and such. But I've found smart dogs pick up well on this kind of thing quickly and easily. I've had two labs, both of whom were fully potty trained before they were three months old, and right now I've got a nine-month-old border collie who is the love of my life--as a matter of fact, she's from an Australian line, the McCallum line. She knew instinctively to go potty outside, and as long as I took her out often as a very young pup, she would go outside. She hasn't had an accident since she was two months old.

From my experience, I can't recommend a border collie too highly for an aspie. They have an almost human intelligence and emotional range while still having the uncritical love so characteristic of dogs. They were also bred to please and follow instructions as they provided companionship to lonely shepherds and were there to herd his sheep. All these dogs want to do is to serve their masters.

The border collie's downfall is actually a benefit for aspies, which is that they are high energy dogs, and need lots of attention. NT's are too wrapped up in other people to give a good dog the attention it needs, but aspies are different. And when that attention is given, the dog reciprocates with an almost uncanny desire and ability to do its master's bidding.

Again, unless your child has some other special needs, any intelligent dog should do wonders. Mine are the best things in my life, hands-down.

Hello Librarian, Service dogs can be trained for multiple needs, including fetching emergency medicine, alerting on alarmed systems, opening and closing doors, finding exits and many more individual tasks. From Shellfish's description it sounds like they do not need a fully capable dog which is why I also recommended training their own.
I feel that a collie would be too lively to work with a 6 year old boy in an urban environment. Depending on family needs the dog provides a distraction during meltdowns and act as an anchor when on a leash, desirable would be both shepherd and search function. Service dogs are becoming more common, breed specifically but some are dropped from training when, for example they are found to have a strong prey drive and can't resist chasing small animals and birds. Again, depending on requirements, a medium sized rescue dog that is confident but does not have strong drives towards other dogs, prey, food or toys, would be most suitable in my opinion.

- We did discuss the option of having the support of the charity in helping us train our dog which is a service they provide. She said that in her experience, this has 50/50 success rate, half the time they need to retrain/rehome the dogs are they are not trained properly and it hasn't worked out and the child doesn't bond with the dog.

- As well as my son who struggles with anxiety and extreme fear of blood, I have a two year old daughter, I do not wish to have a puppy who's nature I don't know, and risk jumping on and nipping my children.

- a purebred dog (Labrador for us) with no health problems, will cost us around $1,500 to buy, add to that the cost of vaccines and desexing and the cost of training the dog and well, that's also a lot of money with no guarantee

- As much as I would like to get a pound dog, I won't be getting a dog whose history I don't know fully with young children

- Therapy dogs are trained with specific skills, not to the extent of an assistance dog but they are able to alert prior to meltdown and lay with the child to help stop them hurting themselves among other things.

- a therapy dog is not a full assistance dog - for which the fund raising requirements are $25,000 and the cost to raise this dog is closer to $40,000

- We live in the inner suburbs of Melbourne and have a very small yard - service dogs are trained to not require a large garden, and get by on a half an hour walk a day.

- The woman who runs the charity feels are good candidates and has been doing this a long time and places a lot of dogs,

- We are making the commitment of adding an additional member to our family for the (hopefully) the next ten or so years - it's a lot to take on and I want the maximum benefit out of the animal for my son rather than just 'a boy and his dog' - Harsh but true

Last edited by Shellfish on 15 Jul 2013, 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are lots of puppies in shelters. Many are purebred as well.

You could try indiegogo or a site like that to try to raise your funds.

There is another thread about therapy dogs in which I posted a link to some site that can teach you online how to find a dog in your local shelter and train it to be an emotional support dog.

Maybe someone can find that thread. I'm not good at that. And I'm very tired so I can't find the link to the dog website right now.

I am considering an assistance dog for myself currently. I certainly do not have the funds or the means to support one at this time, but were the timing ever correct, I feel like I could really benefit from having a service dog.

As well as having AS, I also have severe anxiety/agoraphobia, PTSD, non-epileptic seizures, etc. I rarely leave my house, have frequent meltdowns, few friends, and simply cannot cope with being in public or even around people at all most days. I have done a lot of research on what kinds of tasks service dogs can be trained to perform for someone with Asperger's/anxiety/PTSD, and it sounds like my whole life could open up to new possibilities if I had one.

I wish you the best of luck with raising the funds for a dog for your son. I really wish I had advice, but I don't.

Hello Shellfish, it's good to see you have done lots of research.
I have taken a number of dogs on from people who were having problems in their lives, retrained the dogs and found them new homes.
One that I choose to keep was a collie cross, extremely intelligent and good natured, he had an innate protection instinct over any child he came into contact with. They could roll on him, maul him and pull his hair, he was completely indifferent to their actions as he knew they were just playing.
I wish you good luck in finding what you need.