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Why did we choose a focus on Autism?
Dogs For Disabled didn't set out looking for chances to work with autism. The disorder
more or less came looking for us. In the late 1990s, when questions about service dogs
for autism were rapidly increasing, Dogs For Disabled was already pretty well conditioned
to considering new questions. We made a point of trying to view all new questions as:
"Hmmm....wonder if that could be made to work," Rather than: "Oh, no, we don't do that
here."
In 1999, one particular mother, Kelly Capers, approached the program with a very
complicated "job description" for which she wanted to train a dog. Her son had autism,
and she, being a long-time breeder and a handler of many different dogs, absolutely
knew something should be possible. She just didn't know how, or where, and during a
two-year search, she had been turned down by many other programs. But she wasn't
going to give up--and she had a very interesting concept. When Kelly and Dogs For
Disabled put their resources together, they realized they had defined some significant
pieces to the puzzle of service dogs working with autism. Why not give it a try?
In 2001 Dogs for Disabled, now under the training direction of Julie Nye, began work with
"Larissa," the first dog chosen for the Assistive-Search-Alert (ASA) job. Larissa was
certified in 2002 for public assistance and 2003 for search and rescue. More details of
that project are are available in Chapter 14 of the book, "Practical Partners," available
from Fieldstone Hill Press.
In the last five years other ASA dogs have been successfully trained and placed with in a
variety of different home situations, proving that the concept can be realistically applied.
In 2007 Dogs for Disabled made the decision to focus primarily on the disability of autism,
and thus altered the program name to Dogs for Autism. We hope to greatly increase the
use of service dogs to benefit individuals and families coping with autism. We hope to see
the ASA dogs become far more common not only in the Greenville area, but in many
other locations. Part of our program's purpose and mission statement is to document and
package the training protocol for ASA dogs into a format that can be made available to
other programs in any geographic area with sufficient training expertise.
German Shepherds, from proven and specially-selected working lines, are DFA's most
commonly used breed for a wide variety of reasons. Some strengths this particular type
are because of their genetic background as a herding dog. The concept of containment
of the "family pack" and awareness of property boundaries comes very naturally to them.
Beyond that, they are highly sensitive to context; it is a normal reaction of the breed to
spot, and focus on, a new factor in almost any given environment or situation, therefore it
is extremely easy to encourage them to give an alert to specific problems. Overall, we
believe many factors favor German Shepherds for ASA work--just as most factors favor
retrievers for the more typical service dogs that work with mobility impairments.
Please visit us often as we expand this website to include more information about our
progress with ASA dogs. And please remember that both our current training
projects and the ability to expand the use service dogs for autism will be
possible only through the support of friends who believe in the importance of
the concept!
Dogs For Disabled didn't set out looking for chances to work with autism. The disorder
more or less came looking for us. In the late 1990s, when questions about service dogs
for autism were rapidly increasing, Dogs For Disabled was already pretty well conditioned
to considering new questions. We made a point of trying to view all new questions as:
"Hmmm....wonder if that could be made to work," Rather than: "Oh, no, we don't do that
here."
In 1999, one particular mother, Kelly Capers, approached the program with a very
complicated "job description" for which she wanted to train a dog. Her son had autism,
and she, being a long-time breeder and a handler of many different dogs, absolutely
knew something should be possible. She just didn't know how, or where, and during a
two-year search, she had been turned down by many other programs. But she wasn't
going to give up--and she had a very interesting concept. When Kelly and Dogs For
Disabled put their resources together, they realized they had defined some significant
pieces to the puzzle of service dogs working with autism. Why not give it a try?
In 2001 Dogs for Disabled, now under the training direction of Julie Nye, began work with
"Larissa," the first dog chosen for the Assistive-Search-Alert (ASA) job. Larissa was
certified in 2002 for public assistance and 2003 for search and rescue. More details of
that project are are available in Chapter 14 of the book, "Practical Partners," available
from Fieldstone Hill Press.
In the last five years other ASA dogs have been successfully trained and placed with in a
variety of different home situations, proving that the concept can be realistically applied.
In 2007 Dogs for Disabled made the decision to focus primarily on the disability of autism,
and thus altered the program name to Dogs for Autism. We hope to greatly increase the
use of service dogs to benefit individuals and families coping with autism. We hope to see
the ASA dogs become far more common not only in the Greenville area, but in many
other locations. Part of our program's purpose and mission statement is to document and
package the training protocol for ASA dogs into a format that can be made available to
other programs in any geographic area with sufficient training expertise.
German Shepherds, from proven and specially-selected working lines, are DFA's most
commonly used breed for a wide variety of reasons. Some strengths this particular type
are because of their genetic background as a herding dog. The concept of containment
of the "family pack" and awareness of property boundaries comes very naturally to them.
Beyond that, they are highly sensitive to context; it is a normal reaction of the breed to
spot, and focus on, a new factor in almost any given environment or situation, therefore it
is extremely easy to encourage them to give an alert to specific problems. Overall, we
believe many factors favor German Shepherds for ASA work--just as most factors favor
retrievers for the more typical service dogs that work with mobility impairments.
Please visit us often as we expand this website to include more information about our
progress with ASA dogs. And please remember that both our current training
projects and the ability to expand the use service dogs for autism will be
possible only through the support of friends who believe in the importance of
the concept!
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