Judy Vorfeld’s Office Support Services

Kristy DiVito, Zachary’s mother, explains why they chose an In-Home Companion Dog rather than an Autism Service Dog: Zachary is going to be seven in March 2010. He is diagnosed with Atypical Autism, Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD. The reason we decided on an In-Home Companion Dog as opposed to a full public access dog is that Zachary doesn’t need that level of support in public.

Yes, there are times when we do need to accommodate Zachary differently than a typically developing child. However, Zachary is very well behaved while we’re out in the community. He does not run, hide, or wander. Zachary would never need to be tethered. Although he’s got a language delay, he is verbal. He always holds our hands even if we don’t ask…he knows the drill!!

If my daughter is in her stroller, Zachary knows to hold onto the side of the stroller near my hand. My husband is at work all day, which means I do everything during the day by myself with both kids. We visit the zoo, the little beach/lake by our house, the park, and have lunch/dinner out at all sorts of places. We go to stores such as Barnes and Noble, Bridgewater Mall, ShopRite, Target, etc. It’s never a problem.

I can probably count on just two hands the amount of times Zachary has needed to be carried out of a public area in the past five years. And, when this has happened, there’s always been a clear antecedent. His behaviors are rarely, if ever, random.

The times Zachary would need public support from Aubrey are few and far between…possibly in the ER, for a hospital procedure, or on a plane. Since hospital visits are rare occurrences, we have been able to provide him with the support he needed to get through it.

It certainly took time, a lot of patience and finesse on our part, but we have gotten through the several ER visits relatively unscathed! Will there be times that Zachary could experience great difficulty if he needed to go to the ER again? Absolutely!!! He’s a child with special needs. Having said that, the few times that he might have a meltdown in the hospital didn’t justify utilizing the services of a public access dog. For Zachary, an In-Home Companion Dog was 100% the way to go.

While Zachary may not need public support from Aubrey, we do consider what she does at home to be the work of a highly-skilled service dog. Aubrey provides a service to Zachary at home aside from just emotional support. She’s been trained in behavior disruption for when Zachary is engaged in “stimmy” behaviors or is upset about something. She’s had advanced obedience training; we very often give her the “lap” command when Zachary is sitting quietly so he can learn to associate a feeling of calmness when he’s with her. She hangs out in bed with him. He loves when we give her the “side” command so he can cuddle with her. Aubrey is also trained in tracking (search and rescue) in the event Zachary ever got lost.

I have more about our ongoing experiences with our sweet new 4 Paws for Ability dog here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 7:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.