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Jul. 15th, 2010 04:38 pmSo, I finally admitteded that I don't have the energy to train Guinness to be the service dog I need. Yes, I could have gotten more supprt at home, but there's also a lot more that I wanted to do with him, and I can't.
I just got off the phone with the SouthEaster Regional Coordinator for Canine Companions for Independence. They train dogs to help disabled folks, like me. The one thing they don't allow their dogs to do for wheelies is physical help with transfers - getting off the floor and so on. That happens to bo something Guinness loves doing, so even when I get the new dog, Guinness will have a job around the house. One of the first questions I asked was if keeping Guinness would be a problem; she said as long as he was ok with other dogs, it would be fine. *whew* Considering how much Guinness wants a doggy companion, I don't see that being a problem.
I was kind of surprised to hear from them so soon. I sent in the preliminary online app night before last; the website said it could be 8 weeks before I got a response at all. The stars must have aligned in my favor there. I do meet their preferred client profile - adult but not elderly, stable source of income to provide basic care to the animal, reasonable expectations of what a dog can and can't do to help me. I don't know if mentioning my husband is active duty military helped, but mentioning his deployments and my need to get to places like the commissary while he's gone probably went in my favor. She said they preferred clients who had daily need, not folks who just wanted propulsion around the occasional festival or pet walk.
The tasks I requested are pretty common for CCI - pulling the chair, getting items off of shelves, getting items from the fridge, picking things up off the ground helping with laundry. These are things that keep me from doing a lot of daily stuff. How do you do laundry when you can't bend to empty the dryer? How do you keep the house presentable when you can't pick up pieces of paper or gum wrappers from the floor? And anyone who automatically says "get the kids to do it" most likely has never actually dealt with tweens! They don't even see the mess until I start foaming at the mouth about it! Today I took a gum wrapper from Guinness and made the general statemen "Please throw your the gum wrappers away." i immediately got four indignant ""WE DID!"s in response. Well, obviously someone didn't, because the dog had one in his mouth! News flash: doggie jaws are NOT trash receptacles.
So, step one down. Now I need to send in another request form, pictures of my house and me in my chair, and a bio on my condition and needs. Then they'll contact me again for a phone interview, then I'll go down to the Orlando facility for an in-person interview, and THEN I can go on the wait list. Waits are generally between 6 months and 4 years (which is why I originally started training my own dog in the first place), as they match a specific person and dog. Unfortunately chair dogs are usually on the longer end of the wait, just because there are so many specific tasks for the training. Once my dog is ready, I'll go back to Orlando for two weeks of intensive training to learn to work wit my dog, and then pring the new puppers home.
When we move during the wait period, I'll need to update the pictures on file of my home to show an adequate environment. Same with my chair; a new set of wheels needs to be codumented so the dog can be trained with a similar chair. After all, if the dog does all of his training with a slimline ultralight, the extra 20 pounds and different shape of a standard transport chair would really throw the pup off.
So, a few more hoops to jump through, and then I get to start waiting. Yay?
I just got off the phone with the SouthEaster Regional Coordinator for Canine Companions for Independence. They train dogs to help disabled folks, like me. The one thing they don't allow their dogs to do for wheelies is physical help with transfers - getting off the floor and so on. That happens to bo something Guinness loves doing, so even when I get the new dog, Guinness will have a job around the house. One of the first questions I asked was if keeping Guinness would be a problem; she said as long as he was ok with other dogs, it would be fine. *whew* Considering how much Guinness wants a doggy companion, I don't see that being a problem.
I was kind of surprised to hear from them so soon. I sent in the preliminary online app night before last; the website said it could be 8 weeks before I got a response at all. The stars must have aligned in my favor there. I do meet their preferred client profile - adult but not elderly, stable source of income to provide basic care to the animal, reasonable expectations of what a dog can and can't do to help me. I don't know if mentioning my husband is active duty military helped, but mentioning his deployments and my need to get to places like the commissary while he's gone probably went in my favor. She said they preferred clients who had daily need, not folks who just wanted propulsion around the occasional festival or pet walk.
The tasks I requested are pretty common for CCI - pulling the chair, getting items off of shelves, getting items from the fridge, picking things up off the ground helping with laundry. These are things that keep me from doing a lot of daily stuff. How do you do laundry when you can't bend to empty the dryer? How do you keep the house presentable when you can't pick up pieces of paper or gum wrappers from the floor? And anyone who automatically says "get the kids to do it" most likely has never actually dealt with tweens! They don't even see the mess until I start foaming at the mouth about it! Today I took a gum wrapper from Guinness and made the general statemen "Please throw your the gum wrappers away." i immediately got four indignant ""WE DID!"s in response. Well, obviously someone didn't, because the dog had one in his mouth! News flash: doggie jaws are NOT trash receptacles.
So, step one down. Now I need to send in another request form, pictures of my house and me in my chair, and a bio on my condition and needs. Then they'll contact me again for a phone interview, then I'll go down to the Orlando facility for an in-person interview, and THEN I can go on the wait list. Waits are generally between 6 months and 4 years (which is why I originally started training my own dog in the first place), as they match a specific person and dog. Unfortunately chair dogs are usually on the longer end of the wait, just because there are so many specific tasks for the training. Once my dog is ready, I'll go back to Orlando for two weeks of intensive training to learn to work wit my dog, and then pring the new puppers home.
When we move during the wait period, I'll need to update the pictures on file of my home to show an adequate environment. Same with my chair; a new set of wheels needs to be codumented so the dog can be trained with a similar chair. After all, if the dog does all of his training with a slimline ultralight, the extra 20 pounds and different shape of a standard transport chair would really throw the pup off.
So, a few more hoops to jump through, and then I get to start waiting. Yay?
