Assistance dogs fill need for people with disabilities.

Every dog does indeed have its day, especially at Canine Assistants. The Georgia-based non-profit organization trains and provides service dogs to assist adults and children with physical disabilities, seizure conditions or other special needs. And since its inception in 1991, the group has successfully placed about 1,000 Labs, Golden Retrievers and Doodles with recipients.
With eight full-time trainers and several hundred volunteers who assist with the training process, Canine Assistants currently trains as many as 100 service, companion and seizure-response dogs each year. In addition, it runs six annual training camps and a year-round education program. Indeed, the organization appears to run like clockwork these days. Still, the last 19 years have called for a lot of hard work on the part of founder Jennifer Arnold, her husband, Kent Bruner, DVM, and their reliable staff.
The idea for Canine Assistants originated with Arnold’s father when she was 16 years old. Newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Arnold would require a wheelchair for the next 2 ½ years. “My father was a physician in Atlanta, Ga., and he had heard about a woman in California who trained dogs to help people who used wheelchairs,” she says. “Unfortunately, there wasn’t a dog available, so my dad decided to start a similar training facility. But, he was hit and killed by a drunk driver just after planning for Canine Assistants to begin.” It took Arnold, along with her mother’s assistance, another 11 years to open the facility, and in 1991, the organization was incorporated.

Training
While there are no industry standards for assistance dog trainers, the trainers at Canine Assistants are required to complete a yearlong internship before they can work with and train dogs, according to Arnold. Volunteers with the organization must complete a 12-week training program, after which they may assist with the teaching process.

Arnold favors Labs, Golden Retrievers and Doodles for the program because “these breeds readily use their mouths just as we use our opposable thumbs, making it easy to teach them to tug open doors, retrieve dropped objects, and turn on and off light switches,” she explains. Depending on the needs of the recipient, the dogs may fill various roles (e.g., service, companion or seizure-response). However, all of them are trained the same, beginning at two days of age, she points out. “Each dog that goes through the educational process learns the same 89 behaviors on cue. The decision as to the dogs’ ultimate specialty isn’t made until the matching process.” The three specialties include the following:
• Service. Service dogs assist individuals in a number of ways, including opening and closing doors, turning lights on or off, summoning help and providing companionship. The dogs often help their companions’ feelings of fear, isolation or loneliness.
• Companion. Companion dogs provide a similar service to that of service dogs, but they work primarily in a recipient’s home, assisting with tasks around the house and helping fill emotional needs.
• Seizure-response. In addition to the general training program, seizure-response dogs learn to remain beside a person during his or her seizure, summon help in a controlled environment or retrieve a phone or press a medic alert button prior to a seizure, when indicated by the recipient. In some cases, as the dog and its companion develop a strong bond, the dog may learn to predict, or react in advance to, the onset of a seizure. In such cases, the dog’s whining, pawing, pacing, jumping or barking can alert the companion that a seizure is imminent.

The Canine Assistants program leaves it in the hands of its recipients to determine whether their dogs are comfortable being pet by strangers. Some programs discourage this in the event the dogs become distracted at their job. On average, Canine Assistants dogs are in service for about 10 years.

Making a match
The good news for Canine Assistants is that the program has become extremely popular among eligible recipients. The bad news is that there are many in need of its services, and the waiting list has about 1,600 people. In fact, some individuals must wait as long as five years or longer to attend a training camp, where they meet and are paired with an assistant dog.
The wait is needs-based, according to the organization. Each applicant is evaluated for his or her physical, emotional and social need, and those with the greatest need are moved to the top of the list.
Dogs are placed with recipients of all ages, starting as young as five years old. “We have six training camps each year,” says Arnold. “Once applicants have reached the top of the waiting list, they attend a camp. For the first two days, recipients work with four or five different dogs. At the end of the second day, they provide a list of their favorites. Often, there is only one name on the list. If you watch the interactions of the first two days on tape, you see that virtually all of the recipients choose the dog that was the most responsive to them. So, it’s really the dog that picks the person.”

Reading buddies
In addition to its canine assistance services, Canine Assistants runs an education program through its Noah Elliot Stowers Center for Animal Assisted Education. The center offers presentations, tours, animal-assisted therapy sessions, the K-9 Kids program and more. “Our dogs participate in our Animal Assisted Education program, which seeks to teach children about both dogs and people who have physical disabilities,” says Arnold. “This program has been hugely successful because the children pay attention, thanks to the skills of the dogs.”
K-9 Kids is a reading program, which enables low-level student readers to practice their reading skills in the company of Canine Assistants dogs. Each week, volunteers bring the dogs-in-training (and graduate dogs when recipients so choose) to Atlanta-area schools. Students who struggle with reading are able to curl up with a dog and read to it, notes Arnold. “The dogs never mind mistakes, although they rarely hear any,” she says. “The kids so want to do a good job for the dogs, they practice at home!”
Canine Assistants does not charge recipients for its services, in spite of the $20,000 it takes to provide lifelong care for each of the dogs, according to the organization. “We do not charge for our services at Canine Assistants, as that would put the benefits of an assistance dog out of the reach of those who need them most,” says Arnold. “We will even provide lifetime upkeep, including food and veterinary care, for each dog we place should the family so require.”
The organization’s low overhead permits 95 percent of every donation to be applied to the training, feeding and care of the dogs, as well as travel and lodging costs for individuals in need to attend the training camp in Milton, Ga., to train with, and receive, their new dog.

To make a donation, please visit the Canine Assistants website at www.canineassistants.org for more information.