Jack's Dog

First of all, people need to understand that we are not trying to obtain a "Pet" for Jack. Most people recognize and understand "guide Dogs" or seeing eye dogs". It is important for people asking about Jack, to appreciate that there are a lot of other "assistance dogs" out there. These are dogs, which are trained to help their partners with a variety of different tasks we take for granted. The range of skills taught to these dogs vary with the needs of the human partner, or, in other words, with the specific disability affecting that person.

Jack is a Lakeside, California boy suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury. He sustained the injury in a fall at Lake Morena in 2000. We became aware of Jack in 2002 through our work with Children's Hospital East County when he was about 11 years old. He took his first steps since the fall around Christmas 2002. While he continues to make progress, he is still basically confined to a wheelchair. The nature of Traumatic Brain Injury is such that it is not possible to predict either how much recovery he will make, or how much of the recovery he has made will "stick". As such he has been assessed as a suitable candidate to receive an assistance Dog.

Now, back to the first point. While most people understand "seeing eye dogs", they don't appreciate the costs of breeding, raising and training the dog and the costs involved with training the partner. In the case of "seeing eye" dogs the average is about $20,000 and varies according to the Center training the dog.

The cost of training an "Assistance Dog" is also steep, and varies by Center. While some smaller, very specific centers can do the job for about $5,000, the wait time and subsequent training can be as much as 3 years. In this case, we are working with a Center called Loving Paws, up in Santa Rosa. They specialize in training dogs for children. We were referred there by two local training centers. The cost for the dog from Loving Paws is $10,000, and all being well, Jack should be "in training" by next April.

"After months of hard work on Highway's part, and a lot of telephone calls between Loving Paws and Jack's mom, we have made it!!! Jack will be attending Training School in Santa Rosa starting July 12th., and will be graduating on July 30th.. We hope a large contingent of Highway members will make the trip north to Santa Rosa to be there."