To all our incredible friends, family, and helpers, thank you. Your support means the world to us. Our son, Daniel is an amazing little boy. He is bright, funny, and loving. He loves dinosaurs, Star Wars, playing on his swing set, and with his sisters.  We just adore him so much and want the absolute best for him.

When Daniel was 3, he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder,  Sensory Processing Disorder, Anxiety, possible ADHD, and Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). This is not an easy road to walk with a small child. He  has lots of therapy appointments (ABA, play therapy, feeding therapy and in the  past, OT) to help him manage life and be the best he can be. Although, COVID has interrupted lots of his services and we've seen a huge increase in behaviors. Consistency and routine are everything to an autistic child, and we are now living a very uncertain and inconsistent life. 

He struggles with frustration tolerance, sensory overload, anxiety, cooperative play with other kids, safety, body awareness, hyperactivity, meltdowns, eating, vocal stims, physical stims, etc. He currently can not be alone for hardly any length of time due to his anxiety. This means someone has to be with him 24/7. He cannot go to the bathroom alone, go to his room to get a toy, to the kitchen to get a drink of water, stay in his bed to sleep unless someone is with him. He's absolutely terrified.

I stay home with him and our other kids while Damian works outside the home. Since I also have a toddler and an almost 7 year old, who I will also be homeschooling due to COVID, I sometimes (often) am stretched really thin and cannot attend him, or the others like they need. His meltdowns can be extreme, loud, and violent, and can sometimes last for 30 minutes to an hour. There is nothing I can do to stop them once they start except for being near him and preventing him from hurting himself or others. Because they sometimes (often) happen at inopportune times, that means I have to enlist the help of the 6 year old to watch the toddler and keep her safe, or else I'm leaving Daniel alone. This is incredibly difficult and not at all fair to the girls. 

I currently do not take Daniel in public places by myself at all except for therapies and the occasional unavoidable errand. He easily gets overwhelmed and overloaded and has meltdowns or aggressive behavior, has very low impulse control and it's just plain too hard to handle him with my other kids too. He has very little concept of danger, which is terrifying. Walking through a parking lot, going for a walk, or a bike ride, or even being around strangers is really scary. I have to watch him very closely so he doesn't dart in front of traffic, walk off with a stranger, or otherwise injure himself. That means no going grocery shopping, no running into the store, going to the pharmacy, shopping for shoes or clothes, or any unfamiliar place with him. I do all of our shopping online unless I can sneak away on the weekends when Damian is home. I would love to get him out  more, so he can experience and feel a part of our community, maybe make friends, but it's just too difficult for me to do alone, while Damian is at work. 

All his therapies have done so much for him and for us as a family. There was a time in the early days, when we were not functioning. There was a time I wondered if and how I was going to be able to care for him and my other kids at the same tim e. It seemed impossible, but with so much hard work and learning how to parent Daniel differently than a neuro-typical kid, we have come so far.

But the therapies can only do so much. I'm not too proud to say that we need help. We've begun looking into the idea of getting him an autism service dog. It would mean so much for our family and for Daniel. Autism service dogs can be trained to provide a variety of services to an autistic child. They can provide deep pressure therapy, which can help calm, regulate, and provide tension relief. They can be trained to interrupt some harmful stims and interrupt or prevent meltdowns. They can accompany him in public and provide comfort and a feeling of safety. They can be trained to interrupt his emotional and physical outbursts to us and his sisters. They can be trained to sleep with him to keep him in his bed at night. They can be trained to be by his side at all times so that he can independently move around in his home and his world without fear.  This is about quality of life and improving relationships for all of us. 

However, this doesn't come without a price tag. Service dogs are not cheap. They are professional companions, working dogs. They are very well, and intensively trained and the process in getting one, difficult. Most facility dogs come with a price tag of at least 20k and a 2 or more year wait. COVID has also affected and interrupted trainings for many facilities who are no longer accepting applications. We have found a great alternative though! We were recently put in touch with a local family who just went through the process of receiving an autism service dog. They purchased the dog through http://www.trailsendlabradoodles.com/  who breed amazing and high quality Labradoodles specifically for service dogs. Then they had the pup custom trained to be their daughter's service dog with http://www.charlotraining.com/ . The whole process was seamless and very positive and they absolutely love their pup. He has worked wonders for their child. The cost and process will much easier and realistic for us to work with than obtaining a facility dog. The cost for a dog is $2800 with a $400 deposit. The cost for training is around $7000.

That's where our community comes in. We are trying to raise the 10k that we will need to secure Daniel's service dog and to have it professionally trained. It's a huge sum and unfortunately, we're not able to afford that ourselves. We plan to fundraise and crowd source most, if not all of the fees involved. All funds received will be paid directly to either Trails End Labradoodles, Charlo Training, or used for initial vet, food, dog supply needs.  Anything you can give is so very helpful and appreciated. If you can't give, which is certainly understandable during these COVID times, please share our story to help get the word out. The sooner we raise the money, the sooner Daniel can have his new best friend. Thank you, so much for reading our story.