Questions

One thing about a service dog is that you are pretty obvious while out in the community! So, you get many people asking you questions (at opportune and inopportune times I might add haha) about the dog, the process and what the dog does.

So here are some of the top questions I have been asked in the past couple weeks.

1) They train dogs for autism?
Yes. Yes they do.

2) What are the dogs trained for or what do they do for someone with autism?
Well the number one reason we looked at an autism service dog for our son was for the safety factor. There is the physical tether that keeps Hazel and JJ together. JJ isn't going far when he's tethered to Hazel and this provides all of us with a sense of security while out in the community. Also, the dogs are trained from puppyhood around children with autism, they don't startle easily and therefore can be a constant in the child's life. For us this last part was very important as we are a military family and expect to move frequently in JJ's life. The dogs, however, are not robots and cannot be used as a babysitter or expected to be on duty 24/7.

3) Was the fundraising hard?
Yes and No. $13,500 is a huge amount of money to raise for a dog, so in many ways it feels huge and daunting and freaking impossible!! But once you set your mind to it, it feels a little more manageable. We finished ours in 8 months. It was incredible to us but there are so many ways to fundraise. If you have family that work for a company who will donation match that helps, there are organizations that provide grants for things like this, many restaurants will donate a portion of sales from a specific night to a fundraising effort, family and friends can be very generous and don't discount word of mouth! We had donations from people we have never met and some that we don't even know who they are or how they are connected to us! The biggest thing that we did was have a webpage that was hosted by amazing friends of ours that contained a widget that we would update. It shared JJ's story and how a service dog would help him. We linked that webpage everywhere we could, the more you get your story out there, the more people will help!

4) Does the dog go everywhere with you?
Yup. Everywhere JJ goes, Hazel goes too. Hazel is a fully certified service animal and therefore is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). She is not an emotional support animal, she is not a therapy animal, which are not covered by the ADA to the same extent. She has a purpose and jobs/tasks that she does to help JJ. Anytime JJ steps out of our house, Hazel will be next to him. This is why we wanted her so this is the job she will do. She comes to restaurants (ADA trumps local health laws), to movies, to church, to school, to the grocery store and the list goes on.

Those are the top ones I've been asked. Autism Service Dogs of America have more FAQs on their webpage and you can find them here :)