Judy Vorfeld’s Office Support Services

This article was written by Kristy DiVito, parent of a child with special needs…and whose motto is “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Many people, including parents of other children with disabilities, have wondered why we chose an In-Home Companion dog for our son, Zach. We were looking at an In-Home Companion dog to provide Zachary with social-emotional support and to help him find that level of confidence he needs to make those leaps towards social-emotional independence.

Why didn’t we go with a public access dog? Our primary concern was that if a dog went to school with Zachary, he’d become hyper-dependent on the dog and not use ALL of the very appropriate skills he does indeed have when he’s with us. It would’ve been a “quick fix” in certain regards, but it would not have taught him the life skills he needs or forced him to use the many life skills he already has.

Although it sounds counter-intuitive, we felt it could’ve been detrimental to his independence. The other reason why we went this route is that a public access dog needs to be out with the child as much as possible because that’s the purpose of the dog being trained in this capacity. I’d have to start taking the dog with me and the kids when we’re out and about just to maintain its training. A full public access dog didn’t make sense to us based on Zachary’s needs. It goes back to being functionally appropriate.

Don’t get me wrong, there would’ve been the “cool factor” for Zachary to take his dog everywhere, but it wouldn’t have been functional. We would’ve had to make more changes in our life to accommodate a public access dog instead of accommodating Zachary.

Aubrey is an absolute blessing to all of us. Every time we hear Zachary tell us that he loves her, she’s his favorite dog or that she’s his best friend we can’t help but smile from ear to ear. Aubrey, without question, provides a tremendous level of emotional support and therapeutic services to Zachary every day.

~~Kristy DiVito~~

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Animals, Disabilities, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.