TLCAD for Autism
Call to Action!TLCAD’s overwhelming response to our recent announcement of the Leash-on-Life program, reaffirmed there is a great need for service dogs for families who have children with autism.
TLCAD is currently looking for a national sponsor/partner to develop a training facility that specializes in training and placing more dogs with families.
By creating a training center where more dogs could be trained and trainers could graduate from an Autism Trainer Program, more service dogs would be available in the United States and possibly internationally.
Please call 858 945-2455.
Be a TLCAD partner!
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Due to the continual rise in children diagnosed with autism, Tender Loving Canines Assistance Dogs sent two trainers last summer to National Service Dogs of Canada (NSD). For three weeks they participated in a train-the-trainer program on how to train service dogs to assist families who have children with autism.
The NSD autism service dog program was an exciting and rewarding gift to families wanting a new approach to their child’s needs. This program was a natural for TLCAD to add to its current programs, thus TLCAD’s Leash-On-Life program was born.
Since then TLCAD has placed its first dog, Muffet, with the Cook family. Three more dogs are presently in training.
Little Miss Muffet has been working and training with five-year-old Jolena Gonzales and her parents, Jeffrey and Rebecca Cook, since Christmas 2007. They have become quite the family team!
Muffet’s major role is to provide safety for Jolena who spontaneously runs away from her family, which can be especially hazardous while they are in public. Muffet prevents Jolena from darting away by Jolena wearing a leash attached to Muffet’s service vest. If Jolena should run, Muffet lays down allowing her parents to intervene. When at home, Muffet has been trained to block Jolena from bolting out the front door when the doorbell rings.
Muffet helps set the tone for Jolena’s day, by waking her up and eliciting a smile with a sloppy dog kiss and a motor tail. Jolena’s hard times during the day--such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, tutoring and other challenges--usually progress to sensory overload and degrade into emotional meltdowns. These episodes have shortened or disappeared with Muffet at her side.
Communication skills, cognitive development, social interaction, self-help tasks, sensory integration and fine motor skills are improving as Jolena continues to work with her dog. Because emotional outbursts have decreased, the family now enjoys more activities together as a family unit.
To preserve quality, TLCAD only places assistance dogs in San Diego County. The need to work directly with the families over an extended length of time and to allow for quality follow-ups, limits our ability to meet this need outside San Diego County.
---> More story: Jolena and Muffet were a successful team at SeaWorld.
