Here are Jack and CAYLIE enjoying their day at Special Olympics in Cabarrus County. CAYLIE was the only service dog at the games, which surprised me.  Last year we saw one other.  There were so many children who were frightened because they were out of their routine and environment, but CAYLIE helped them cope with her love and patience. Jack had two events and received gold medals.  He was tickle ...

Since January I have been involved in ITT training not only with MASON, but with KENAN and Adam as well. I have been able to work with them for each of his three visits and the progress they have made together is almost indescribable. When KENAN and Adam saw each other for the first time since their bump KENAN was automatically glued to his side and he was the only dog to behave this way right from the begi ...

  Jack and CAYLIE spent Saturday afternoon and evening with our new friends Mergil and Lou. They are both fellows with the William C. Friday Fellowship.  Here is the link to their site: http://fridayfellowship.site-ym.com/. They asked to do a documentary about living with shaken baby syndrome and how our service dog has helped our Jack.  The foundation strives to teach professionals in all types of ...

The puppies left yesterday for their training at the prisons and it was very bittersweet.  I haven't blogged in a long time because I have been so busy but I want to get this out while it is still fresh in my mind.  I feel like the luckiest person to have been able to spend the first twelve weeks of the puppies lives with them!  I have learned so much about caring for them and helping shape their persona ...

 Each year our service dogs are required to complete Public Access Testing.  This year, CAROLINE, CAYLIE, and NIKKI decided to practice together at Concord Mills Mall.  We worked on walking through crowds, having a stranger pet our dog, walking with a shopping cart, lying down in a restaurant, completing a down, sit, and stay, and handling noise distractions.  The dogs did a great job!  The biggest di ...

This is another new puppy named WYATT II because we all know the famous WYATT! We have a new English Cream Golden Retriever puppy joining our family, his name is WYATT! I know, you've heard that name before! WYATT Jr. was generously donated by Shadymist Kennels. His breeder has registered him in honor of Shane Brenton, 23, who returned home after 3 tours in Iraq only to take his own life because of his psyc ...

These new puppies are GUS (left) and ELLA (right).  We are welcoming them to the paws4people family! ELLA & GUS are two wonderful black lab puppies who were generously donated by Barra Labradors. We are so grateful for these wonderful new additions! http://www.barralabradors.com/ These puppies seem to have the most wonderful disposition and are very mild mannered and sweet.  It is going to be so amaz ...

This month our classes created a Venn Diagram to show the differences and similarities between dogs and people.   The large circle on the left shows the features unique to  people like hands and feet, and the circle on the right shows the features that are unique to dogs such as tails and paws .  Where the circles overlap are the features that dogs and people both have such as ears, eyes, and teeth.  T ...