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Spring into Action – Summer Group Classes Starting Soon!

George Gershwin’s classic, “Summertime, and the living is easy.”, should hold true for all. But if you’re dealing with an unruly pup or young dog, maybe not so much. Bring back the easy, learn how to hone that unbridled enthusiasm. Take your pup from the forces of “evil” into “good” and have fun in the [...]

Labor Day to Earth Day

When you live day to day with young children, especially a child with special needs, just getting through the day can often be daunting.  Unless you are especially good at paying attention or you’ve instituted specific (usually with professional help) interventions, recognizing significant changes in your child is hard. When your contact is less regular [...]

Hippotherapy: Service Dog, Boy + Equine Assistance – Four Paws Up

Today’s outing with Bubbles involved a new species of animal — for Sam and for Bubbles! We decided to try an evaluative session on horseback to see if Sam could benefit from equine therapy. Many researchers have noted that often, when autistic children are first introduced to hippotherapy, the new environment may prompt crying, screaming, [...]

Tommy The Wizard – A Rescue Gone Right

Time can be measured in many ways. the blink of an eye, seconds, moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades, lifetimes, centuries, millennium and yada yada yada. The benefit of such measure is often comparative –  to reflect on how things are the same, how things are different. Then getting subjective — how things are [...]

So ya wanna be a dog trainer?

I have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of people and thousands of dogs over the past 13 years as a licensed independent social worker passing herself off as a professional dog trainer. Privately, in group classes or both, I work on helping teach people — of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities –  the [...]

Bubbles: A Year in the Life of An Autism Service Dog

Kudos to my honorary 4th daughter, Chelsea Cross. Very soon to become my indentured film documentarian, I mean Independent Project Advisee from Oberlin College.  Please enjoy her audition video challenge — Meet and take footage of Bubbles and her family and friends in celebration of Bubbles 1st birthday, and in between final exams and holiday [...]

New Puppy Dogs of Winter

No, I didn’t just get a new puppy for the holidays. The picture above is from the day, last January, that Bubbles arrived at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport into my care after a long flight from sunny Southern California to begin her life in training as an autism service dog. As I write, large snow [...]

The Great Outdoors — Super Duper Smells AND Mud!

Incorporating a dog with a special needs child requires adults take charge. If situations are avoided because of anticipated problems — as is often the case with autistic chidlren — culminating in temper tantrums, meltdowns and misery, it’s only natural avoiding such environments when possible would be one way to go about it. But if [...]