AUTISTIC K9
Training K9s for people afflicted with the many varieties and levels of the Autistic Spectrum of developmental disabilities is the foremost concern of our Academy program. I have been working with the Disabled community for some thirty years now, and ten years ago was confronted by friends with children suffering from developmental disabilities found in the Autistic spectrum. One was institutionalized and died shortly afterwards, and I helped work with the other boy through the family dogs. Shortly afterwards I had a life changing experience working for a family, with a son diagnosed with Severe Autism and Seizures. Through their serious struggles to survive I learned about what it means to really fight Autism for your child's life. The problems we faced were almost insurmountable, some new weekly, and it became an ongoing struggle to keep up with the many areas of concern for this young 12 year old boy. I quickly learned all about what it means to live and work with an adolescent suffering with severe autistic related problems. It gave me goals for training that took me as a Multi-National and World Champion Dog Sports Trainer with a Post University education eight years of research and field study to fulfill.
Since then, still learning, I have continued with one family after another, training dogs to meet their needs. Since we are speaking about individuals from 4 to 40 these needs are diversified and exhaustive. They require every kind of dog, every kind of training, and every kind of knowledge available to fulfill.
It didn't take long to realize that the second most important need in our school was to develop a Non-Profit Corporation that would allow us to help families do fund raising, to raise the money needed to pay for the training of these crucially important K9s. In 2004 I finally got my non-profit corporate papers from the IRS, and through our efforts to learn how to make The DOGWISH Foundation effective for each family we can now help a new family every day of the week, besides training the K9s.
TRUE SERVICE ASSISTANCE K9S
There are now several schools offering what they call "Service Assistance K9s for the Autistic" to the public, and WE would like to challenge them. Most of these schools are highly deceptive, and their Assistance K9s are really Therapy dogs and not Assistance K9s at all. An Assistance K9s is described as a dog that can perform at least three functions for their handler which makes their constant companionship a necessity.
It is a fact that a good dog, trained for good obedience and companion work, will add therapeutic quality to their handlers' life. However, left to themselves, they are not enough to affect the changes we desire. A dog may have protective instincts, but we don't rely on them for intelligent usage of those instincts. A dog may have a natural ability, but that ability needs to be focused, developed, and enhanced in order to be truly affective as an Assistance K9. Because of my Post University Scientific Education and vast international field experience, we have been capable of making major strides in the training of our K9s to work with individuals fighting Autistic conditions above and beyond any other K9 Academy in the world, in the following areas:
SUPER BONDING
Through our special knowledge of psychology which we have used to enhance the relationship between our K9s and their handlers, we have been able to develop a "super bonding" affect between many recipients and their K9s. This affect is so strong that many K9s, once they bond, do not want their handlers to leave their sight, and give alerts when their handlers leave. I've had calls from families explaining that their K9s have become extremely handler aware and even passively protective. These families wonder if their K9s ever sleep. This is caused from the special genetics we try to find in every A DOGWISH k9 WE select, and from our conditioning to become "brainwave and body functioning sensitive", which is very strong. This conditioning greatly enhances the dog's natural ability to focus and concentrate on their handler, and mixes that ability with an emotional attachment that is very powerful. This is a very important attribute for a assistance K9, because it gives the magical connection that is so important, especially for some disabled by Autism.
COMMUNICATION
A most important need we face is developing a way to stimulate and enhance better inter social communication abilities and skills between us and those people with autism that we are trying to communicate with. It is not enough for K9 trainers to conveniently hide in ignorance, stating that the cause for Autism is unknown, and the effect is unworkable.
The communication process that other dog trainers use and teach to their dogs is called "operate conditioning". What this means is that the dog is taught to receive a command word, and respond with an action. Most dog trainers brag about the number of commands their dogs will perform. These commands are taught to the dog like tricks, the same way you teach a Parrot to repeat a spoken word. All the dog is doing is mimicking what you have shown them, or repeating an action you have taught them. Our training is different.
We actually stimulate the Purkiinjie (the 17th chromosome) located in every cell of the brain in our K9s to "turn on", stop, listen, receive, and communicate, using dynamic intelligent thought processes. Our K9s perform on a much higher level of intelligence, using their brains to understand and respond to the actual intentions and needs of the handler, as the handler projects them out, instead of a single word verbal "commands". There is no comparison.
Our K9s are focused and "tuned in" to the thoughts, feelings, mental and physical processes of their handlers and respond dynamically and intelligently. Isn't that exactly what we are trying to achieve with those people fighting an Autistic condition? Every dog we train works dynamically by "brainwave communication" before being placed.
If a K9 has been taught to allow us to stimulate, open their Perkinje brain cells, and turn on the communication process in their brain, why couldn't they help us to the same thing with their human companion? They do. We have had several DOGWISH K9 recipients who were non-speaking when they received their K9s, and are now communicating and using dynamic higher functioning skills. Their K9s were able to stimulate and motivate them to do what others couldn't. This is a process totally unique to our Academy.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Through the relationship the intended handler will develop with our k9s who understand and communicate with them, these affected people suffer less stress, frustration, irritability, and defeat, as they now have a true "friend" who understand and supports them exactly as they are. It is the greatest miracle in their life. It provides a foundation of love, harmony, and fun for them that they can rely on, no matter what life throws at them. Wouldn't WE ALL love a partner like that who will go with you EVERYWHERE, and be there, just for you?
SOCIAL INTERACTION
By learning to feel confident and empowered through their relationship with their K9 companion, numerous autistically affected K9 recipients have changed complete behavior patterns and processes, come out of their rooms, allowed themselves to interact with the family and friends, become much more social, and have allowed themselves to face the stresses in their lives in many ways they before would have completely either avoided, or refused to confront. Also, because of the presence of their K9s DOGWISH recipients are often approached by people that they would normally never have the courage or initiative to meet. Drawn by the dogs, people love to come and speak with their handlers which give our recipients a lot more chances to learn how to communicate, and speeds up the process.
SEIZURES AND MELTDOWNS
Through the training process where we trained our dogs to be sensitive to the actual needs of each handler we receive consistent reports detailing the affect that our K9s were having on them, especially in the area dealing with their seizures. Since the K9s I was placing were having this affect on their handlers, I have seriously investigated each situation to find out what exactly was happening, and what we were doing through our training that caused this phenomenon, and found consistent specific details that caused this phenomenon. Since then we have greatly enhanced this part of our program, using it as a foundation for our training of all dogs.
Our dogs are conditioned to become "brainwave and body functioning sensitive". They have been found to perceive, understand, and respond to brain waves and body reactions up to 6 hours ahead of a seizure occurrence, and alert the handler or others to that condition. As a result numerous handlers have noted reductions in the amount and severity of their seizures, and some have stopped having seizures all together.
Coinciding with this training, our dogs can detect the conditions that cause mental meltdowns in their handlers, and can help them avoid these conditions.
SEARCHING
However, autistically affected people can be persistent, and committed in their efforts to wander, or just interested in wandering, and will find a way. As a Multi-National and World Tracking dog Champion, trained by the world's top Search and Rescue Experts, and the trainer of the Nations' top rated Search and Rescue K9's for 2006, we are well prepared to train every K9 for the Autistic to be an expert search K9 as well.
We have been asked repeatedly why our K9s do things that other K9s do not, and how our dogs can do many of the things that we teach them, by everyone from ordinary concerned parents, to other Neuro Psychologists and Surgeons that have wanted to "check out" our credibility, (many of whom did so for their own grandchildren). I invite anyone who is honestly concerned to do so as well, and do enjoy sharing the documented facts about our work with our dogs. On January 30th we made a presentation to the Staff and students of the Victor Valley College, explaining our understanding and work with the brain of each dog we train. It took about three hours, and after hearing our lecture and seeing demonstrations by our K9s we are being invited to give more lectures.
TOXIC ALERTING
Many people disabled from the Autistic Spectrum are hyper-sensitive to many of the unnatural elements they come in contact with daily. Up to one third of those individuals disabled by the Autistic spectrum of disabilities have suffered neurological damage from toxic exposure. Some are affected seriously enough to have seizures. Our dogs can be trained to both alert, and to avoid letting their handlers walk into an exposure that might hurt them.
The truth is that the normal "Assistance" K9 as trained by almost every major organization that supplies the field of disabled persons seem to be caught in the grips of a "4-H" type of mentality. Since these dogs have been accepted and can be certified, they feel no need to change or enhance their specific programs. At numerous home shows, expos, demonstrations, and presentations, we have found 1,000s of frustrated, disappointed, and very concerned disabled people, who have come to us and were deeply moved to find that we produce a mentality and an understanding in our dogs psychologically that other organizations are not capable of duplicating.
HANDLER DEFENSE
People with disabilities are sought out by criminals as crime victims three times as often as people without apparent disabilities. I have even had a gang beat up a recipient and steal their K9. On the other hand, I have DOGWISH recipients who were physically beaten a number of times, and literally sexually abused, even in public places, who are now safe because their K9s have been trained to protect them according to "the letter of the law". These K9s are normal, balanced, good hearted dogs that are loving and accepting and appear harmless. However, if the situation arises, the dogs are trained to respond intelligently, and correctly, without becoming a liability in any way.
Every person, family, environment, and situation, are going to be different. Therefore, every K9 needs to be trained to be as affective for these particulars as possible. This takes time, a team effort, and perseverance from everyone involved, but, working together, we can achieve our goals.
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