SKILLED assistance or companion dogs, which perform a wide range of everyday tasks for their owners — from opening and closing doors, picking up dropped objects, and operating remote-control devices, to accompanying them on trips outside the home — have long been available to adults but never to children in the UK.
Now the charity Dogs for the Disabled, supported by the pet-shop chain Pets at Home, has launched a scheme specially for young people.
Unlike assistance dog schemes for adults, which aim mainly to help owners with their daily living, the new programme intends to use the dogs to help children play, assist with physiotherapy and provide crucial emotional and mental support for disabled young people who often feel isolated and excluded.
Advertisement
Caroline Taylor of Dogs for the Disabled said that assistance dogs had the power to transform almost every aspect of children’s lives.
“With children, the training has much more of a focus on play as well as helping them with tasks usually left to parents, giving the children more independence,” she said.
“Many children with disabilities such as celebral palsy, for example, need to exercise their muscles as part of their physiotherapy. This can include actions such as throwing a ball and catching it, which the dogs will enjoy too.
“However, it’s often the small things that make the difference, as the dogs will help carry school bags and be able to press buttons on the TV — and, as they are trained to collect dropped items, perhaps even helping to tidy bedrooms,” Taylor added.
Using research conducted in the US, where the practice is relatively widespread, Dogs for the Disabled has put together a team of trainers for the project and two children have already been given their new dogs.
Advertisement
Initially the puppies spend time with a “puppy socialiser”, a volunteer family which teaches them the basic skills, such as house training and walking to heel. At about eight months the dogs start their proper training at Dogs for the Disabled’s training centre in Banbury. Full training takes about two years.
Helen McCain, training manager for Dogs for the Disabled, said that the trainers work closely with the children’s physio- and occupational therapists so that the dogs’ training can be tailored to meet the individual needs of each child. The children are also involved in the training and are encouraged to take care of their dogs themselves.
“Even grooming a dog can be good for a child because it helps develop their muscles and their co-ordination. At the same time it can lead the child to take responsibility for the dog and for themselves and it could help encourage them to start brushing their own hair. Through learning to be responsible for the dogs, they learn to develop themselves,” she said.
The dogs could also help in teaching the children voice control, something particularly important to children with cerebral palsy, which can affect speech: “If the dog doesn’t hear the word in a suitable style, it won’t respond,” she says. “So the children have to learn to project themselves. It also improves their posture and ultimately their self-confidence — instead of sitting leaning forward with their heads down, they start holding themselves up in their wheelchair.”
Linda Whiting, marketing manager of Pets at Home, which has donated £30,000 towards the cost of the trainers, said that the store is aiming to raise £200,000 this year from customer and staff fund-raising activities and donations for the scheme.
Advertisement
“We have 160 stores and because of our size, we get lots of requests for help. We wanted to work with an animal charity, and Dogs for the Disabled was the perfect fit for us. Our customers are all petlovers and they really seem to understand the difference that an assistance dog can make to a child’s life,” she said.
Dogs for the Disabled: 01295 252600 or www.dogsforthedisabled.org/