A Service Dog for Ottilie
Donation protected
My dear friend Ottilie needs our help. A lot of people know Ottilie loves to participate in roller derby as referee Attitude & Pointe and loves to dance just as much.
What a lot of people don’t know is that Ottilie started volunteering in Emergency Medical Services at the age of 16, became a EMT at 19, and has logged over 50,000 volunteer hours in the last 20 years.
A lot of people also don’t know that Ottilie has been fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for nearly her entire life.
She has been working with medical professionals to treat it for decades, but some treatments simply cannot be done with medication or therapy—but they can be done by PTSD service dogs. After careful research and discussion with both medical and service dog professionals, Ottilie opted to take on a puppy that will be reared and trained into a CGC-certified PTSD service dog for her.
As fate would have it, Ottilie found a double-registered family kennel nearby (Pack of Pitts, based out of Buffalo, NY) that had one female puppy left from its fall litter. Even more incredibly, the puppy connected to Ottilie within minutes. Her name is now Nasira, which means “helper, guardian” in Arabic.
I’m sure all of you who know Ottilie have experienced her generosity and her kindness. She has been there for me at my worst moments, but her kindness extends even to those she doesn’t know—over 50,000 hours dedicated solely to helping anyone who needed help—from a hand to hold to lifesaving techniques.
It’s our chance to help Ottilie. While puppy-rearing and training a PTSD service dog at home is less expensive and carries a much higher chance of success due to strong bonding than a “pre-trained” service dog, it still costs money and insurance does not cover service dogs.
She and her service dog-in-training need to take obedience classes and work one-on-one with professionals. Each class costs roughly $100-$200 per session, and the one-on-one trainer costs up to $2500. The obedience classes will train the Nasira to be a good dog and Ottilie to be a good handler. Advanced training that will require a one-on-one trainer will teach the Nasira how to perform specific tasks for Ottilie such as interrupting “freeze” behavior, performing crowd control, and deep pressure therapy for flashbacks. Other costs include specialized equipment for training and working.
Ottilie needs our help to rise up and roll out, to overcome the symptoms of PTSD that are holding her back. The funds raised from this campaign will help Nasira to become the wonderful service dog she is destined to be. I hope you can contribute, every little bit counts, and if you can’t please share this page. Thank you so very much.
Please watch the videos bellow to see their first meeting.
What a lot of people don’t know is that Ottilie started volunteering in Emergency Medical Services at the age of 16, became a EMT at 19, and has logged over 50,000 volunteer hours in the last 20 years.
A lot of people also don’t know that Ottilie has been fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for nearly her entire life.
She has been working with medical professionals to treat it for decades, but some treatments simply cannot be done with medication or therapy—but they can be done by PTSD service dogs. After careful research and discussion with both medical and service dog professionals, Ottilie opted to take on a puppy that will be reared and trained into a CGC-certified PTSD service dog for her.
As fate would have it, Ottilie found a double-registered family kennel nearby (Pack of Pitts, based out of Buffalo, NY) that had one female puppy left from its fall litter. Even more incredibly, the puppy connected to Ottilie within minutes. Her name is now Nasira, which means “helper, guardian” in Arabic.
I’m sure all of you who know Ottilie have experienced her generosity and her kindness. She has been there for me at my worst moments, but her kindness extends even to those she doesn’t know—over 50,000 hours dedicated solely to helping anyone who needed help—from a hand to hold to lifesaving techniques.
It’s our chance to help Ottilie. While puppy-rearing and training a PTSD service dog at home is less expensive and carries a much higher chance of success due to strong bonding than a “pre-trained” service dog, it still costs money and insurance does not cover service dogs.
She and her service dog-in-training need to take obedience classes and work one-on-one with professionals. Each class costs roughly $100-$200 per session, and the one-on-one trainer costs up to $2500. The obedience classes will train the Nasira to be a good dog and Ottilie to be a good handler. Advanced training that will require a one-on-one trainer will teach the Nasira how to perform specific tasks for Ottilie such as interrupting “freeze” behavior, performing crowd control, and deep pressure therapy for flashbacks. Other costs include specialized equipment for training and working.
Ottilie needs our help to rise up and roll out, to overcome the symptoms of PTSD that are holding her back. The funds raised from this campaign will help Nasira to become the wonderful service dog she is destined to be. I hope you can contribute, every little bit counts, and if you can’t please share this page. Thank you so very much.
Please watch the videos bellow to see their first meeting.
Organizer and beneficiary
Erica Sloma
Organizer
Rochester, NY
Heather Beardsley
Beneficiary
