Placement

The entire family unit of a child with Autism needs to be a part of any effective therapy that is to take place. The family is the most important social clique that a child affected with Autism will ever face. A family's support and ability to teach and to lead this child is key to a successful family group. This is why all placements are family-based, where every family member plays an important role with the Compassionate Paws Dog. A Compassionate Paws dog has a job description that is created and refined in the many interactions between the dog, the child and the family unit. Through this means we are creating the mold in teaching the child empathy and a social connection within his/her family inside of a world that can be confusing and frustrating in the eyes of any child.

Why are Compassionate Paws dogs placed at an earlier age than other traditional service dog programs? Very simply, it is that delayed placement has the potential to influence success of bonding between the child and the dog. By the age of two years, a dog's temperament and abilities are well established. If the Compassionate Paws dog has not had exposure during the early months to the specific challenges that the child will present, the dog may react unpredictably because the dog will not know how to interpret autistic behaviours. Compassionate Paws dogs are raised with exposure to his/her eventual partner or at least with exposure to the typical behavioural patterns evident within the future placement. It is through these beliefs that Compassionate Paws dogs are placed for children in non-traditional ways.

Compassionate Paws Dogs are trained through the use of positive reinforcement by using errorless training methods and simple hand signals. These special dogs are simply never allowed to make a mistake and get corrected for it. Any potential negative training experience is re-directed into a positive training experience for the dog providing them a positive situation that they will not want to forget instead of one that they are afraid to challenge. A case in point is if a Compassionate Paws dog is being trained to provide Search and Rescue skills for a child that is a wanderer, we never want to negatively correct the three month old puppy when you find the child's sock in the puppies mouth even if you are not yet working on training that skill. Our use of Clicker Training is a method that is very familiar to children with Autism if they are familiar with Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA). The training that the child with autism will provide for the dog will raise the child's self-esteem and facilitate bonding between the child and the Compassionate Paws Dog.

Compassionate Paws Dogs are further beneficial in facilitating a positive social interaction between a child and his/her peers. The vest that our Compassionate Paws dogs wear states “Please ask to pet me”. The public is encouraged to speak to the child by using a specially trained dog as the mediator. People who may have before shied away from the responsibility of opening a conversation with your child, often relax and rise to the challenge when a dog is available to help structure the questions and comments. In this case a Compassionate Paws Dog can act as a bridge between a therapy session and a child's home program by providing cues and structure to language and speech development.

Compassionate Paws Dogs pay attention to the cues every member of the family gives out, and they behave as if it is their job to try to help their family in any way they can to be healthy and happy. Family involvement is crucial in the placement of a child and a Compassionate Paws Dog. We encourage all members of the family unit to become involved, educated and active in the role that the Compassionate Paws Dog will play inside your family.