Hero Dog Award

A service dog from Naples could soon be a canine superstar.

Dolly Pawton has made the semifinals in the American Humane Hero Dog Awards.

The black Labrador Retriever is a service dog for Amy Sherwood, a Maine resident with several illnesses. Dolly alerts Amy if her blood pressure drops too low or if her heart rate rises to an unsafe level.

If Sherwood passed out at home, Dolly is even trained to press a certain button that calls 911.

“Dolly has been amazing with filling any needs that I have, including emotional needs” says Sherwood, “She was more of a cardiac alert but she’s helped me with everything from picking up items, to PTSD, to helping me navigate through the store safely.”

Guide Dogs

Children with sight loss will soon benefit from the expansion of Guide Dogs Cymru as they bring four-legged friends into their lives.

The charity is rolling out a Buddy Dog service, enabling visually impaired children and young people to enjoy the friendships and benefits of a dog.

Buddy dogs can have a positive impact on a sight impaired child’s well-being, improving their self-confidence, improving relationships and building a greater trust in themselves, and others.

The buddy dogs receive the same early foundation training as their guide dog counterparts, but follow a different career path to a guide dog. Families in Wales are being invited to register their interest in attending a Buddy Dog Discovery Event, which will give them an understanding of the responsibilities involved when a dog joins the family.

Ellis Hughes, 11, has sight loss due to nystagmus and albinism. He had his first dog when he was seven, and is now the proud owner of golden retriever Ralph, who lives with his family in Holyhead, Anglesey.

Ellis’s mother, Sian Edwardson-Williams, said: “The buddy dog scheme is brilliant, and we’ve been so lucky to have our two. Our new dog, Ralph, is so laid back. He’s a wonderful companion for Ellis, and it’s good preparation for potential guide dog ownership in the future. Customer Experience Lead for Guide Dogs, Caroline Abraham, said: “It’s a case of jobs for our dogs. All our dogs go through the same foundation training and we decide the best career path for them as they progress. Some will become guide dogs, and others are better suited to the buddy dog role.

Therapeutic Healing

Molly Jean Schantz, OTR/L and dog trainer is combining her Occupational Therapy practice with her dog training skills to bring Assistance Dog Training to the community. Molly is offering Assistance Dog Training to anyone with a physical or mental impairment where the dog can be of assistance to the handler. Molly works primarily with the client/handlers to teach them how to train their dogs to meet their personal needs and goals. Dogs can be trained for: mobility, balance, picking items up off the floor, turning on and off lights, carrying or holding items, seizure alert, deep pressure therapy, crowd control, waking a handler up as an alarm, opening and closing doors, assisting with activities of daily living such as making the bed or opening the fridge for an amputee as well as for companionship and safety, for example, assisting an individual with anxiety to leave the house.

Molly lost her mother to suicide in June of 2014, and shortly after, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the pain and anxiety that haunted her since she was the one to find her mother. Through the pain she endured, she found her Silver Lining: Gunner, her PTSD service dog. Instead of falling into a deep hole after this tragedy, she took care of herself and structured her environment in such a way that it provided her with all the ingredients that inoculate against situational depression. By training her own service dog, she was provided with daily structure, responsibility for another, meaning, and a source of positive reinforcement and love. Molly says, “The most important thing that I did after the loss of my Mom was to get a companion to help me deal with my emotions. By training my puppy to become a PTSD service dog, I created tasks for myself that required self-discipline, such as training, walking, and feeding schedules, while providing myself with structure as well as a source of joy.”

Since then, Molly has been on a journey to learn how to train these four-legged companions and now it is time to give back what was given to her. Molly’s background is in mental health with a BA in psychology and a Master’s in Occupational Therapy, she strives to help individuals lead purposeful and meaningful lives following trauma or disability. Molly utilizes a unique perspective and provides client-centered occupation-based interventions enabling her clients to maximize their potential and lead independent and meaningful lives. This strengthens the human-animal bond and is more cost effective than buying an already trained assistance animal. Assistance dogs include, but are not limited to, Service dogs, Emotional support Animals (ESA) and Home Helpmates. If you do not qualify for an assistance dog, she will also be offering private basic obedience lessons and classes for anyone looking to strengthen the bond with his or her canine companion.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, Service Animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. The dog must be specially trained to assist the handler with something directly related to his or her disability.

Training Detection Dog

When Dan and Lisa Williams adopted Shep two years ago, they noticed he had a penchant for sniffing around cars.

The New Stanton owners are hoping their 3-year-old Australian cattle dog soon will be using his olfactory skills to recognize people infected with the coronavirus, as part of the new regional Covid-19 K-9 Detection Task Force.

“It’s kind of exciting to think that a dog can do that,” said Dan Williams, who plans to undergo training to be Shep’s handler.

Researchers in Great Britain, Florida and eastern Pennsylvania are looking to train canines to provide warning of covid-19 infections. The new task force wants to achieve the same goal with a cadre of 10 dogs and handlers in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Shep made the cut from among 168 area dogs recently tested for suitability as trainees. He and his owners were recognized at this week’s meeting of the Youngwood Dog Club, where Dan Williams was installed as vice president of the local nonprofit.

The Williamses took Shep into their home after he turned up as a stray in New Alexandria.

“He would go around cars and smell the inner fenders and around the doors,” Dan Williams said. “I always wondered if he’d been in some kind of training for a K-9 (police) dog.”

With his current owners, Shep has been trained to visit schools and nursing facilities as a therapy dog.

“He really does a good job with that,” Dan Williams said, so, “we thought we’d try him with the covid-19 training.”

During the dog candidate testing, Lisa Williams said, “I think they were looking to see if he would smell where food was when they removed it and put it somewhere else. They wanted to see if he had the ability to problem-solve and know to look for where it was without anybody telling him.”

The task force commander, Rodney Little, acknowledged the difficulties that Shep and the nine other dogs overcame to qualify as covid-19 detection trainees.

“The hardest part about the test is you can’t tell your dog what to do,” said Little, who turned over presidency of the Youngwood Dog Club to Billy Cowherd. “They have to let their brain take over and work.”

The plan is for Shep to undergo six or more weeks of training for covid-19 detection while Dan Williams completes one week of handler training.

First, Little said, the task force is looking to raise some money. It received about $800 in donations, but he figures it will cost a little more than $1 million to initiate the task force team and keep it in a state of readiness for a year. He said grant applications are being readied to submit to organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ultimately, Little would like to have trained dogs ready to provide covid-19 detection in such public spaces as courthouses and airports.

“If the virus goes away, our task force team will not,” he said. “Our team will be trained and ready to deploy for any threat needed. They’ll be able to smell things such as explosives and guns.”

Working Dog

Work for Iskra, a 10-year-old German shepherd, once included searching vehicles at a checkpoint in Baghdad or patrolling Trump Tower in New York City for explosives as part of the team keeping the then-president-elect safe.

These days, the retired military working dog is more focused on searching out scents along park trails in San Antonio and keeping close watch on her favorite human, Jake Ferkin.

“She’s kind of obsessed with me,” the 23-year-old Army sergeant said with a laugh.

He found himself attached to Iskra after serving as her handler at Fort Myer, Va., for more than two years beginning in February 2016. Together, Ferkin and Iskra, a dog with specialized training to identify explosives, served on various stateside security missions, including protecting President Donald Trump as he prepared to take office and securing Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony that was part of inauguration events. The pair also served overseas on missions in Israel and a 10-month stint in Iraq.

“She’s really friendly to people and didn’t have too much trouble with travel,” Ferkin said.

Once they returned from Iraq in 2018, Ferkin got orders to Joint Base San Antonio, where he now works training new dog recruits with the 341st Training Squadron. When he left Iskra, he knew she was beginning to show signs of age and pain in her hips and knees, and he began efforts to get her retired so he could adopt her.

He turned to Mission K9 Rescue, a nonprofit that works with the Defense Department, military contractors and police departments to rehabilitate working dogs to retire into civilian homes — quite often with former handlers.

Since its founding in 2013, the group has rescued more than 990 dogs, with about 640 returning to former handlers, said Bob Bryant, co-founder and chief technology officer for Mission K9 Rescue.

“There’s a relationship there. It’s a known individual to the dog. The dog receives comfort from the known person,” Bryant said. “The person receives comfort and love from the partner he or she served with.”

Many of the retiring dogs go through a rehabilitation process at the nonprofit’s ranch near Houston, where they learn to decompress and function in a home-like environment. Many have quirks that come from years of training and working — a fear of thunder, because of exposure to gunfire, or a bias against other animals, people or clothing.

The Houston-area facility, which welcomes volunteers, can hold up to 40 dogs at a time. Mission K9 Rescue would like to expand to hold 60 dogs and install a place for the dogs to swim, Bryant said.

The nonprofit also helps fund medical treatment, and prospective owners must show they are capable of meeting the dog’s medical needs before an adoption is approved. Age is also a factor for a dog’s health, with the average age of dogs that come through the rescue at 9.5 years old, Bryant said.

“We are extremely stringent in our adoption requirements,” he said. “We have over 1,500 applications sitting right now. We got in over 100 last weekend. A lot of people want to adopt these dogs, but not all are able to invest the time, money or resources required to maintain them.”

There is a $300 fee to adopt from the group, but Bryant said they invest far more into the dogs than they ask for in return.

Iskra officially retired from service in early May and returned to Ferkin on May 25. In a video of their reunion, Iskra spends about 45 seconds checking out the cameras and people documenting the event before she recognizes it is Ferkin holding her leash. She then begins to jump at him and turn circles at his feet.

“Yeah, there was a lot going on, so it took a minute,” Ferkin said. “I’m really grateful for [Mission K9 Rescue], because I would not have been able to go get her myself.”

Because of travel restrictions in place for the coronavirus pandemic, Ferkin was not allowed to go to Virginia to collect Iskra. Instead, volunteers from Mission K9 Rescue drove the dog to Texas.

Just a couple of weeks into their reunion, Iskra is adjusting to retirement and her new home with two dog siblings and Ferkin’s wife, Felicia. She still has the drive to work or play, but even after a few rounds of fetch, Jake Ferkin said the dog begins to show pain in her hips.

“What’s she’s having trouble adapting to is that she wants to continuously work,” he said. “Her body just can’t really handle it.”

Iskra will occasionally wander out into the yard on her own or venture farther along the trail at the park, but Jake Ferkin said it’s not long before she returns to him.

“She just likes to be with me,” he said.

Comfort K9 Program

Sheriff Troy D. Berry is proud to announce the implementation of a new initiative aimed at helping victims of crime in Charles County: the Comfort K9 Program. This program, which has been in the planning phase for several months, will be aimed at providing emotional support to victims of crime, particularly children. The Comfort K9, a Golden Retriever, will work directly with a detective assigned to the Special Victims Unit (SVU) in the Criminal Investigations Division.

Detective Sergeant Kristen Clark, who supervises the SVU, developed the concept for the CCSO’s Comfort K9 Program after researching the work of therapy dogs with other police departments around the country. Research has proven that therapy dogs have increased disclosure rates in children during the forensic interview process from 34% to over 80%. “Our Comfort K9 will assist detectives who are conducting forensic interviews with children or other victims of crime who may need emotional support,” said D/Sgt. Clark. “This canine can also provide comfort for victims who are testifying in court cases.”

K9 Liberty is a 10-month-old female Golden Retriever who received her training at Applejack K9 Academy, home of the Elite Registry of Working Dogs, in Charlotte Hall, MD. She will continue to work with her trainers as she begins her role with the CCSO and transitions to working with her handler, Detective Nina Garner, who serves in the SVU. “We are grateful to the staff at Applejack for the top notch training they have provided Liberty in preparing her for the important work she will do in our community,” said Detective Garner.

“Victims of violent crimes have experienced significant trauma, and we are committed to helping them through the criminal justice process,” said Lieutenant Andrew Schwab, Commander of Persons Crimes. “The Comfort K9 Program will be a vital part of that process, especially for adolescent victims.”

Photos, announcements, and updates about Liberty will be provided on the CCSO Facebook page.

“We are looking forward to working with our new therapy dog partner,” said Sheriff Berry. “She will undoubtedly be a positive addition to the CCSO family and will provide an invaluable service.”

Helping Local Veterans

Wolfhounds Legacy Corporation is a non-profit that has been working with rescue dogs to train them as service animals for veterans and first responders. They are on a mission to save the lives of both the dogs and people, one dog biscuit at a time. Of course, there’s more to it than a few treats.

“It is our mission to save dogs and veterans, alike, to reduce the unnecessary loss of life to euthanized dogs and veteran suicides. Wolfhounds Legacy Corp. trains dogs for a minimum of 200 hours over an 8 month course training session to ensure they meet all criteria of an outstanding service companion. Dogs are trained specifically for the assistance of veterans with PTSD, however, can work to accommodate most needs for veterans,” explained a post on their Facebook page.

The local Hendry-Glades WLC group has been holding some indoor training sessions at the Pioneer Community Center, which has come in handy with the weather we’ve all been experiencing.

“Big thanks to the Pioneer Community Center, for letting us use the indoor facilities. Our team of veterans is a bit smaller because some have gone north for summer. We were able to practice a lot of tasks such as- doors, public bathroom, ignore food, ignore happy puppy, off leash work, place, long down with handler out of sight, find me and keeping focus,” the group’s leader, Tyla Bebon wrote. “Next we will be starting on click training to work specifically on tasks- get help, retrieve items, pick up, carry and specific tasks that each individual veteran may need assistance with.”

She added that if anyone is interested in getting their dog into WLC training, there were some spots available. Veterans and first responders, who need service dogs or training for their own dog, are free. “If you are looking for training and are not a veteran we have spots available for donations,” Bebon explained.

Hero Dog Awards

Celebrated dog trainer Sara Carson and her sidekick Hero are excited to be on the brink of another prestigious honour.

The former North Bay resident and finalist on America’s Got Talent says she’s hoping a seven-year dream may soon come true.

The 25-year-old now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and fellow dog-trainer John Devine.
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“I always wanted Hero to go to the American Humane Hero Dog Awards.
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“It’s pretty exciting that Hero received enough votes to make it into the semi-finals! It almost feels like we are on America’s Got Talent again!” she said on social media. “If he wins his category we will be attending the gala and be in the running to win the overall Hero Dog Award!

“Thank you so much for all the amazing support!”

⁣The website says “⁣The American Humane Hero Dog Awards is an annual, nationwide competition that searches out and recognizes America’s Hero Dogs – often ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things, whether it’s saving lives on the battlefield, lending sight or hearing to a human companion, or simply providing the tail-wagging welcome a pet owner relishes at the end of a hard day.”

“Hero entered my life when I was 17 years old,” says Carson. “I was anti-social, had family issues, and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was not planning on making him my service dog until I realized how much he could help me. Working through ongoing medical issues and pushing me to overcome some hurdles, he gave me a future I was excited about. Together we have traveled to every state in the USA, performed on the largest stages and most importantly he became the Hero I truly needed.”

“We have been using our platforms to help educate and bring awareness to service dogs. I am so thankful that Hero is such a stable dog and has been able to handle other dogs in public. Hopefully, as we continue to educate we can make a difference.

“Going into his eighth year with me, he is starting to slow down and I am having to make the hard decision to retire him. I am hoping that our last working year together can be as memorable as the past eight amazing years.

“Everyone Needs a Hero & I’m so glad I found mine.”

Voting closes July 16.

Winners in each of seven categories are honored on Hallmark Channel’s nationwide broadcast of the American Humane Hero Dog Awards this October.

Guide Dog Group

With Chariho schools closed and social-distancing requirements still in place, 14-year-old Gabrielle Macaruso found a constructive way to occupy her spare time: a small, yellow puppy named Citron.

Citron (the French word for lemon) is a yellow Labrador retriever who, if she makes it through the tests and training, will eventually become a guide dog for the New York-based nonprofit group Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

Regional Manager Maureen Hollis said only about half the puppies who start the training end up as guide dogs. The others are trained for other work or adopted as companion animals by families.

“It’s about 50% of the dogs we put on program,” she said. “In our organization, we have 450 dogs on program and we are usually placing about 165 a year with graduates [blind or visually impaired people].”

Citron arrived at the Macaruso home on May 28. Gabrielle, who has never had a dog, has gone through a five-hour orientation and attends weekly virtual training sessions with Hollis. She has volunteered to raise Citron for 6 weeks, after which the puppy will move to the next stage of her training.

“We had to take a training class about how to train a puppy,” she said. “I took it in April and it was a Google Meets video call and they took us through all the steps of how to train a puppy to be a guide dog.”

Citron’s training currently consists of basic obedience, house manners and house training, and socialization. Macaruso brings the puppy to as many different types of environments as possible so she can be confident in any situation — an essential quality in a guide dog.

“A really important quality is the confidence,” Hollis said. “Resilience, obviously, is a huge one, so if the dog is in situations that are stressful, just like us, can they come back from a stressful day and go to work the next day?”

Gabrielle’s mother, Lisa, is the assistant director of disability services for students at the University of Rhode Island and a member of the Chariho School Committee. She is also familiar with the URI Puppy Raisers’ Club, one of whose members will take over Citron’s training when she leaves the Macaruso home.

“Because these students at the University of Rhode Island formulated a puppy raisers’ club with Guiding Eyes for the Blind, I’ve had exposure to the program from work,” she said.

The puppy’s training regimen, she explained, is highly structured.

“There’s a protocol for everything for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, so she has a schedule,” she said, referring to the puppy. “She has a cue word that Brie [Gabrielle] has to train her to respond to, because ultimately, the individual who is visually impaired will need the animal to eliminate on a very tight schedule and on command. And so, part of the work that Brie is doing is teaching her to “get busy,” which is to eliminate on demand, but of course, she’s just a few weeks old. That’s one of the end goals for the summer.”

Gabrielle said the training has been going well so far.

“For the most part, she’s been doing really well,” she said. “She’s a really smart dog, so she picks it up quickly. We walk her maybe twice a day and then she loves to play outside and roll around in the grass.”

When Citron has completed her training with Gabrielle, she will live with a member of the Puppy Raisers’ Club, where she will receive more advanced training. Gabrielle will still be able to visit Citron, however, because she will be occasionally asked to puppy-sit.

Guiding Eyes for the Blind selects puppies from lines of dogs bred as guide dogs at its Canine Development Center in Patterson, N.Y.

Lisa said, “These dogs, they’re bred to have characteristic traits that make them ideal service animals, and it’s so evident with this puppy. She’s so attentive to Gabrielle.”

She may be just a few weeks old, but Citron has made a big difference to Gabrielle during a stressful and uncertain time.

“Citron gives me someone to be with and she also gives me something to do all day, because school is very easy now that it’s virtual learning,” she said. “She’s a project that I can work on and that will reward me … I miss school and I miss my friends, and raising this puppy while also helping the organization also provides me with some companionship and purpose.”

Asked if she and the puppy had bonded, Brie replied, “Yes, I really love her.”

The next stage of the relationship may be the most difficult, because it will require Gabrielle to let go.

“It will be difficult to give Citron up, but I know she’s going to go on to do important work,” she said.

Service Dog University

Bonnie Bergin recalls taking family trips as a child from her home in Willits to the Bay Area and stopping at the Green Mill Inn restaurant in Penngrove for dinner.

Now decades later, she is poised to open a new campus for her service dog training institution on the 10-acre property that she and her husband Jim purchased three years ago.

“I remember going to that restaurant as a kid,” said Bergin, 75. “It’s kind of like deja vu.”

Bergin, who is credited with inventing the service dog for people with disabilities, founded Canine Companions for Independence, the first nonprofit to train and place service dogs. After leaving the nonprofit in 1991, she founded the Assistance Dog Institute, which was designated a university in early 2004 and became Bergin University of Canine Studies.

In 2017, Bergin purchased the iconic Green Mill Inn with the hope of opening a campus for her university within a year. But permitting issues and now the coronavirus pandemic have complicated those efforts.

“I thought it would only take a year to get it open,” said Bergin, who has a doctoral degree in education. “It’s been amazingly difficult.”

Bergin said she expects to have a county occupancy certificate within a week for the campus of modular classrooms and administrative buildings. However the coronavirus outbreak has disrupted education for the 50 students pursuing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in programs such as canine studies and human-canine life sciences.

“As soon as shelter in place came down, we moved to online teaching,” she said. “All the students left.”

The summer and fall programs have moved online, she said. Each student receives a service dog to work with during the semester, and Bergin hopes to host a three-week course with students and their dogs on the campus in mid-July depending on the pandemic. That would be the first class at the new site that operated as a restaurant for 80 years and was a local landmark featuring a green windmill along Old Redwood Highway.

Bergin pioneered the concept of the service dog at Sonoma State University in the 1970s, when a professor challenged her class to identify solutions to help people with disabilities.

She was reminded of the perseverance she’d seen in the disabled community while traveling and teaching with her husband in places like India, Turkey and Pakistan. A dog lover since she had Sport, a Labrador mix, as a child, she began to think about ways to use canines to make a difference.

“I thought about what can be done to help people with disabilities, and I came up with dogs,” she said. “That has been my life ever since.”

Bergin is also involved in several other programs, including efforts to pair veterans with PTSD to service dogs and working with inmates in dentition facilities to decrease recidivism rates.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Bergin University will incur a big financial hit to prepare teachers for distance learning, equip students with laptops and disinfect classrooms when students are allowed to return.

Bergin said she has been told that the university will receive $472,000 in federal emergency aid, although she said that she hasn’t seen the money yet.

Service Dog’s Impact

Hawk Ricketts and Tanner had been pals since Hawk was 9.

Hawk was just a boy and trapped in his own world then, and Tanner was a newly trained service dog who opened the rest of the world to his very own boy who has a sensory processing disorder.

The community paid for Tanner through fundraisers and rallied to fund an emergency surgery for him a few years ago.

Tanner, an old man by dog standards, died last week at age 11, leaving Hawk, now a man of 19, devastated.

Tanner passed two days before Hawk’s birthday, and Hawk was already grieving the loss of his father to a long-term illness in December.

But, despite his grief, Hawk, who lives in Zionsville, wants the community to know he’s grateful for the life altering gift of Tanner.

“This is one of the hardest times of my life,” Hawk wrote in an open letter to the community. “It is with profound sadness and gut-wrenching heart that I want to let everyone know that I’ve had to say goodbye to my best friend, Tanner.

“Tanner introduced me to the world as each of you knows it,” Hawk wrote. “I was 9 years old when Tanner walked into my life and took his rightful place beside my (wheel)chair. He helped me navigate life and conquer my fears. Having him by my side has meant independence. With Tanner, I became ‘Hawk the Brave.’

“Tanner loved everyone, and I am forever grateful for all the love and kindness everyone showed him. … Please send up a prayer that my best friend has arrived safely in God’s heaven.

“I don’t know how to navigate through life without him. I am crushed. …”

Hawk and Tanner completed high school with high honors in June 2019 and just completed their freshman year at Wabash College, where Hawk attended on a dean’s merit scholarship.

Tanner was showing signs of his advanced age, such as arthritis, and wasn’t quite up to working on campus from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., Hawk’s mother, Brenda Ricketts, said. They bought boots for the dog when his feet got cold from walking on concrete last winter.

“It was the funniest thing to watch him walk in boots,” Brenda said. “It was hilarious. He was such a comic.”

Hawk and Tanner had already volunteered at the Children’s TherAplay Foundation during high school. And Hawk and Brenda were beginning to think about letting Tanner retire to a nursing home where he loved to visit and entertain residents.

But blood clots on Tanner’s aorta and brain and related complications took Tanner last week, Brenda said.

Hawk is too aggrieved at present to discuss another therapy dog, Brenda said, but she knows he needs one, and friends are encouraging her to begin looking.

She does not have funds for a new dog. Tanner cost more than $10,000 and came from Northern Indiana Service Dogs. Plus, that organization won’t have one available for months, or maybe a year, Brenda said. It takes up to two years for some dogs to be fully trained.

Hawk wants his next dog to also come from NISD, and Brenda hopes a solution will arise by the time Hawk needs to return to Wabash.

Hawk is on the medical track academically and participating in an Eli Lily summer work program that is online this summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s good the program is offered online because Hawk is immunocompromised, his mother said.

She’s unsure if Wabash classes will resume in person or online in August and hopes Hawk can study online so they have more time to find a suitable new pal for him.

“Because of Tanner, Hawk was able to do everything he did,” Brenda said. “He was the greatest gift. He opened Hawk’s whole world up and provided so much independence for Hawk.”

Paws Giving Independence

Paws Giving Independence is a service dog program based in Peoria that trains dogs to help people with various disabilities.

During the pandemic, training looks different and PGI is finding new ways for trainers to teach important skills.

“There’s still people out there that have disabilities and need these dogs,” said Michelle Yuen, director of animal intake and training.

Soon, the service dogs will help people in wheelchairs and alert owners to medical issues like seizures.

“These dogs really are essential workers,” said Yuen.

And training is key.

“Sometimes it can be the difference between life and death,” said Donna Kosner, director of community outreach, education, and applications.

So, Paws Giving Independence is getting creative.

“Our training has changed a bit with social distancing and just with the changing of the standards of groups,” said Yuen.

Virtual training sessions are helping dogs learn and practice skills during quarantine.

“A lot of our dogs have been training mainly at home, so the skills carry over at home is similar to in public but again it’s definitely not the same,” said Yuen.

Training in public is a huge part of working on service dog’s skills.

To help, Northwoods Mall is stepping up.

“We trained regularly at Northwoods Mall before all this happened, so the fact that they’re inviting us back here is really great,” said Kosner.

In small groups, trainers are now able to work with dogs, giving them real life experience.

“The dogs can practice still one on one with some of the skills that they need to learn,” said Yuen.

The trainers and dogs are making the current circumstances work in an effort to serve people with disabilities in the area.

“We’re really trying to find creative ways to get our dogs safely and keep the community safe,” said Yuen.

Leaders say they hope to continue training at Northwoods Mall while it’s closed to the public.

During this time, Paws Giving Independence is still taking applications and conducting interviews virtually.

Medicine’s Potential For Dogs

It’s been a year since Brooklyn-based hair artist and salon owner Chelsey Pickthorn learned that, after having beaten triple-negative breast cancer, an especially aggressive form of the disease, it had returned and spread to other parts of her body.

She sought out a new oncologist who – through the use of precision medicine, including sequencing the tumor’s DNA – would determine the best course of treatment. With targeted therapy and significant changes to her diet, the new tumors are shrinking dramatically. It’s a true achievement against such an aggressive disease.

Now, Pickthorn’s dogs are joining her in the fight. They’re participating in research at Cornell to expand the potential of precision medicine for canine and human patients. Dr. Jan Krumsiek, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, is partnering with Dr. Marta Castelhano, director of the Cornell Veterinary Biobank, to study a type of lymphoma that frequently occurs in humans and dogs.

They’re looking at the tumor’s metabolism. By analyzing blood samples from healthy dogs including Pickthorn’s, as well as dogs diagnosed with lymphoma, the researchers will look for similar metabolic changes that also occur in human lymphoma cases. These similarities can help establish dogs as a model for studying human cancers, which the researchers hope will lead to better testing and treatment options for both species.

Dogs are an excellent species for the study of human cancer, because they share the same environment as humans. And they develop cancer quickly due to their shorter lifespan, which accelerates the pace of the research.

“The missing piece for learning about a specific disease could be sitting on your couch or sleeping in your bed,” says Castelhano, “and we are not really taking advantage of the power of this model.”

The model may also result in more effective treatments for canine cancer, which have lagged behind human therapies. “If you learn something about human cancer, maybe we can also apply it to our canine companions, and help them live longer, healthier lives,” says Krumsiek.

Metabolic changes hold the key

The collaboration began in fall 2019 at a conference at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Englander Institute for Precision Medicine. He studies metabolic changes in the body for diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and diabetes using a technique called metabolomics. It involves identifying and measuring the levels of thousands of metabolites – substances that result from metabolic processes in cells and organs – and analyzing how the levels change in response to disease.

With 14 years of experience in biobanking, Castelhano was eager to learn how Cornell’s biobank could contribute to this new area of research, and impact the lives of precision medicine patients.

Castelhano uses high-quality samples from veterinary patients to translate clinical findings into research innovations. Those samples are carefully curated by Castelhano and her team at the biobank – the first in the world to receive accreditation to an international standard for biobanks. Castelhano’s banked blood samples from sick and healthy canines provided the perfect opportunity to study the metabolomics of diseases shared by humans and dogs.

Castelhano and Krumsiek focus on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), to advance research established by Dr. Kristy Richards ’90; she was an oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and the College of Veterinary Medicine, and a colleague and friend of Castelhano. She was also a pioneer in translational research, comparing canine and human lymphoma to find new diagnostics and treatments, until her death from triple negative breast cancer in 2019.

DLBCL is the most common type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and creates similar symptoms in humans and dogs. Using metabolomic data from healthy dogs and ones with DLBCL, Krumsiek is looking for metabolic changes caused by the cancer that show up in the blood. If these same changes occur in people with DLBCL, then dogs could be an effective model for studying the human form of the cancer, and for identifying targets for new drugs for both species.

Unleashing the power of banked samples

Pickthorn became involved with the project when Castelhano discovered that she was a survivor of triple-negative breast cancer, and visited her salon. In February, Pickthorn and her two dogs, Hudson and Noma, attended a seminar Krumsiek gave on this work, titled “Metabolomics: From Pathogenesis to Precision Medicine,” at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Pickthorn and her dogs also visited the Cornell University Hospital for Animals, where the biobank clinical team collected a blood sample, which was labeled, entered into the biobank’s database, processed and carefully stored in a freezer.

“Hudson and Noma were treated so nicely and felt really comfortable. It was really cool to be a part of it,” says Pickthorn, who also has offered to donate her own blood to the human biobank at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The future of precision medicine

If the project is successful, it may one day allow oncologists to use a patient’s metabolic profile – as well the DNA of the tumor – to design a precision medicine treatment plan. Genetic data shows what mutations a tumor has, but metabolomics reveal what is actually happening inside the cells.

And while the researchers are starting with lymphoma, a metabolomics approach could be applied to any cancer or disease sample in the biobank.

“Biobanks are the core of precision medicine,” Castelhano says. “Every contribution to a biobank could improve your own health and advance precision medicine research, which may impact the lives of many other patients.”

Pickthorn was especially grateful for the precision medicine she received to treat her metastatic cancer. The mutations it uncovered qualified her for a clinical trial using a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which has yielded promising results. She also credits a healthier lifestyle and a diet of whole and plant-based foods.

“I made a commitment almost exactly a year ago, shortly after my diagnosis, that I was going to be in the 1% that lived past five years or 10 years or 15 years,” Pickthorn says. “I’m very optimistic.”

Service Dog Accident

Marion Pond at Lion’s Point remains closed as state officials test the water.

Ashley Rogers captured video of her German Shepherd, Anita, playing in Marion Pond last Friday.

“We played for about two hours,” said Rogers. “She loved splashing in the water and playing with the kids.”

The Waupaca County woman describes noticing a sudden change in Anita, who she describes as not only a member of the family, but also her seizure response dog.

“She started to act funny, and she wouldn’t leave the water unless I did,” said Rogers. “So, I went and sat down, and she threw up, and she cried and screamed while doing it.”

That vomit included algae later identified to Rogers as duckweed.

Anita’s condition quickly got worse.

“I immediately called the vet. Others thought she just played too hard, but my gut told me otherwise,” said Rogers.

She became unresponsive with her heart stopping nine minutes before arriving at the Fox Valley Animal Referral Center.

“They gave her the drugs three times, and there was no response,” said Rogers.

Without a necropsy, it is unknown exactly what caused Anita’s death, an otherwise healthy dog days away from turning three years old.

The Marion Police Department acted quickly by closing down the pond, collecting water samples and taking pictures to send to the state.

An update to the department’s Facebook page on Saturday says the city and the Waupaca County Health Department visited the pond reading in part, “No blue green algae was located and there was not a direct link as to what may have created this situation last night involving the dog.”

Marion Police also reached out to the DNR. In an email to Action 2 News, a spokesperson for the agency says, “The only role the Wisconsin DNR had with this incident was recommending the City of Marion submit pond samples to the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene. Waupaca County DHHS initially contacted the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.”

Detection Dog