Good morning everyone! If you follow Gabriel Builders on Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gabriel-Builders/261495327942?ref=hl, you’ll see I predominantly talk about design. Today I would like to bring some attention to a really great organization called Dogs for Autism ( https://www.facebook.com/DogsforAutism ).
Gabriel Builders first became involved with DFA through Kathy and Lars Johnson, who’s company Data Spring is located in the same office building as Gabriel Builders. They bring their German Shepherds to work with them everyday, and as the Rubios are dog lovers themselves, it’s easy to see why the entire place is pet friendly! Through Kathy and Lars, they learned about Dogs for Autism, a charity The Johnson’s are very involved in, oftentimes driving long distances to pair service dogs with people with Autism. I wanted to shed some light on this organization, because I happen to have a daughter who is autistic, and I myself had never heard of DFA before. Dogs for Autism is partnered with Vested Partners, and rather than use my words to describe what they do, I will share a bit from their website https://dogsforautism-public.sharepoint.com/dogs-for-autism :
Dogs for Autism, a division of Vested Partners, combines Assisting, Searching, and Alerting (ASA) to provide families a more secure and functional environment.
Assistance The dogs can provide logistical safety and more independence in public. A natural byproduct of this help is greatly reduced conflict between parent and child.
Searching A trained dog provides an instantly-ready means to locate a child, whether in the home or outside.
Alerting In a similar way to how a hearing assistance dog alerts, an ASA dog is trained to alert a parent to certain activities or situations.
As you can imagine, there are tremendous expenses in running this type of organization, and if you are in a position to donate to this worthy cause or buy a raffle ticket or two – they have great raffles! – I would encourage you to do so. Dogs are amazing and unconditionally loving and loyal creatures, and I believe there will be a special place in Heaven for service dogs, hopefully for ALL DOGS!
Nicole LaFond