Helping Paws n.g.o.

When we started Helping Paws, nobody in this country knew what is an assistance dog and what such dog can do for a disabled person. Even we didn't know. We also didn't know that n.g.o. meant non-gorvernmental organization and that in order to train such dogs, we must start one.

When Jim and I bought Barkley, this cute little labrador puppy, from Mrs. Hana Pirnerova in 1996, we didn't know he will change our lives as much as he did. Because Hana is a proper breeder who likes to know how are her puppies doing, we stayed in touch, wrote occassional letters and Christmas cards. Then one evening in Spring 2000, I received an unexpected phonecall from her.

She explained to me, that her friends, the Tomasu family, have been training guide dogs for years and now they've heard that it's possible to train dogs for people using wheelchairs. They knew the dogs are being trained in the U.S., but they had no idea what such dogs can do or how it's all organized. She knew I spoke English and she knew I had some disabled friends, so I was an obvious choice.

I got on the Internet and soon realized the dogs are called assistance dogs and that they can know as many as 90 commands. They open and close doors, switch on/off lights, pick any item which may be dropped on the floor, retrieve mobile phones, carry small items in the backpacks, alert deaf people to sounds, even learn to alter people to approaching seizures. The list seemed endless, the job seemed huge.

I contacted American trainers and non-profit organizations and asked them for help. We soon received books, videos, sample forms, training instructions and much encouragement from people in the US and other countries. Thank you all! We did not receive any encouragement at home, though. Everyone told us we were nuts, that we don't have a prayer of getting sponsors, that Czech disabled people will be unwilling to go through the necessary training and tests.

Despite all that, we started a Pilot Project, training first five dogs to prove that it can be done. We were lucky to find suitable adult dogs and willing people who helped us in the beginings. While our trainers tried to explain to a dog, that he should flip a light switch, I set out to do the paperwork. I translated some of the materials we received, created a website and first flyers introducing the project, prepared the paperwork for starting a non-profit organization, got all the stamps, wrote By-laws and coordinated volunteers. Helping Paws n.g.o. was then officially approved in February 2001.

Being so busy, my translations were delayed and I soon realized, that the trainers have finished training our first dogs without the American manuals. They only needed to know what the dog can do and took it from there. We held several meetings with disabled people to learn their needs and listened to the individual needs of the clients. As a result, in May 2001, first four clients officially received assistance dogs and one facility received a fully trained therapy dog for permanent holding.

The dogs were amazing. They all had complete command of space orientation, perfect behaviour in public places, smoothly responded to commands from even severely disabled clients. On top of the "normal commands" such as retrieving items dropped on the floor or opening doors, each dog learned to handle tasks specific to their client.

For example Barney, a huge Golden Retriever, was paired with Misa, a tiny 8 year-old boy suffering from muscle weakness. Sometimes Misa's head drops forward due to weak neck muscles and he could suffocate. To a great relief of Misa's parents, Barney was trained to gently nudge Misa's head back into the wheelchair's headrest. Labrador Lord was trained for a young mother with multiple sclerosis. Lord shops in their local wheelchair-inacessible shop for her. He goes up the stairs with a backpack, money and shopping list and comes back with the backpack full of groceries. I wish my dog could do that!

The estimated value of this Pilot Project is around 1.000.000 Czech Krowns (over $41.000), created among four people, plus a handful of ocassional volunteers. We never gave it a thought, we just did what was needed. My big thanks for this goes to my husband, who supported me during the first years when I worked for free, pretty much full time. I gave over the director's seat to Hana Pirnerova in 2002 and she proved to be an excellent fundraiser and director. I'm still involved coordinating dog therapy and in the promotional end of things, the Helping Paws website now has over 200 pages.

To say that all this makes me happy sounds like a cliche, but it really does. I'm very proud of Oli and Jirka Tomasu, our genious trainers. I'm super proud of Hana, who handles all the paperwork, learned to work on a computer and found sponsors! For me, the job was relatively easy, because I was always an "office mouse", but Hana is a "dog person", professional breeder and puppy raiser, so she really stood up to a challenge. Her husband Petr came a long way too, first thinking it's just another crazy idea of his wife and now training dogs with Oli and Jirka.

Approaching its fifth anniversary, Helping Paws has grown into a strong organization of professionals, including an ergotherapist, a psychologist, a fleet of puppy raisers, three full-time trainers and one director, Hana, without whom it would never happen. She recently told me, that back in 2000, it took her four months to get enough courage to pick up the phone and ask me for help. Nowadays, she knows how to ask for help and gets it.

Thanks to her fundraising efforts, Helping Paws have placed over 40 assistant and therapy dogs of the highest quality and changed lives of many more people trough their network of dog therapy volunteers. They also changed lives of many people on the ouside, who decided to contribute or help us. When I ask them about their motivation, I always get the same answer: "I want to do something meaningful, something that will make a difference." Then I realize, again and again, that they came to the right place - Helping Paws does make a difference, to all of us.

Thank you Barkley! Thank you all, guys!