Helping a teenager get a service dog

I am bored and need a project and I came onto this site on the internet: http://www.gofundme.com/Servicedog4jadzia

Now ordinarily I would work with a diabetic needing a diabetes alert dog, but most of that is covered. Here is a teenager – 17 years old – who has spent most of her life in the hospital. She graduated from high school at 16, through a program in her area for students who are hospitalized. We have a similar program in Dallas.

She is very isolated and has few resources as a result. Let’s face it, our average kid with diabetes goes to school, maybe church and has lots of contacts who can help them fund raise. She doesn’t.

When I first mentioned the project on Facebook a good friend raised some very good questions – she asked why the girl and her family wasn’t getting the dog free from the organization who raises the dogs. That is a really common misconception – that the service dog organization does all the funding. I know that most people have to lay out a substantial part of the funding themselves. Even if the dog and program is completely free, the recipient has to pay for food, dog supplies and vet bills themselves, and as all dog owners know, that can add up quickly.

In addition, most programs require some type of application fee, even Seeing Eye Dog.

The newer programs often have the recipient do some of the fund raising. The organization that Jadzia is considering requires the recipient to raise some of the money to streamline the process. That is very common these days. I know that the organization I used to fine tune Dulce’s training does that – by the way, I paid 100% of the costs associated with Dulce, though I was lucky, I had the skills in place to recognize that she wanted to do that and the skills to do most of the training.

So the $8000 that Jadzia is raising is to help the service dog organization with fund raising – and trust me it’s a drop in the bucket – the typical cost to raise and train a service dog is over $20,000. She is also using some of that money for the initial maintenance of the dog – remember, she’s 17, and is only a high school graduate.

Right now, Jadzia is completely dependent – the purpose of her service dog is to work both as a heart monitor, but also to help her learn how to cope with society. Remember, this is a teenager who hasn’t been to school and hasn’t been able to get out and interact with society. All things her service dog will be trained to help her with.

While the website has some suggestions for donation – it will take any amount – even contributing $25.00 will help, especially if a lot of people chip in. And please, RT this on Twitter and Share it on Facebook. Who knows who it will reach.