Autism Service Dog for Sophia Marie

First, let me tell you a little about Sophia Marie. She is 7 years old. She is amazing, beautiful, incredibly smart, funny, and overall the sweetest   little girl on this planet (when she's not having a melt down, or dealing   with a moment of sensory over load). At age 3, she was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, an intellectual delay, ADHD, a developmental delay, as well as a speech delay (which, consequently, she is currently classified as "non-verbal.) Over the last couple of years, through therapies and her amazing team at school, she has made some amazing progress with her communication skills. Mostly through using a communication chart as well as some      sign language. Only very recently has she actually been able to (try) to say a couple of very basic words. Therefore, her not being able to express herself most all of the time, it usually results in screaming, throwing a  tantrum, breaking things. She has pretty much zero ability to calm herself  down when she gets in sensory overload or is screaming/throwing a tantrum due to not being able to communicate well.  Also, like most autistic children, we have a problem with her "roaming". We have had one terrifying incident with her roaming .. Which brought on a sense of terror that I as a parent NEVER want to feel ever again. Thankfully, we have not had many incidents since where she was able to get out of the house without us knowing (thanks to the chain locks we installed at the top every door in the house). The mental, emotional, and physical stress that we as parents go through every minute of every day is absolutely destabilizing. However, I would take it every single second of every single day to make sure she is well taken care of and safe. And that normally means that we can not take our eyes off of her for even two seconds.   She needs a "side-kick". She needs a best friend. She need a protector. And an Autism Service Dog would be the answer to every single one of our prayers as far as her safety and well being goes. Not only to help with the roaming and the physical aspect, but the emotional/mental element as well. She needs help calming and grounding herself in the middle of a meltdown or a tantrum. We want her to have a best friend that will never leave her side, one she can depend on and will always be there. She thrives on routine, so the routine of a best friend/pet being there for her every second of every day would do worlds of help for her. We just want her to live her best life, even with the things that she cant control that may hold her back. And we truly believe a service dog could change everything for her. We of course understand that therapy and social therapy is necessary to help her become her best self; but having someone there along the way, a best friend, something she can ALWAYS lean on, could make that journey to her best self even just a little easier. And we as parents would do literally ANYTHING to make any and everything as easy on her as we possibly can. She deserves that. She deserves a life like any other little girl. Service dog training is insanely expensive. As a matter of fact, when we looked into service dog training and saw the average price, we realized there was no way we would -ever- be able to afford something like that for Sophia, and it broke our hearts. Its disheartening to know there is something out there that could potentially help our daughter in the  biggest of ways, and to a family like ours, its absolutely unattainable as we are a family of limited means. So we figured, as one last shot, that we would start a GOFUNDME as a  last ditch effort to keep the dream of Sophia having a service dog alive. Dog has been mans best friend for literally thousands of years for a reason. And I think its high time Sophia is able to experience that.  A service dog would change Sophia's entire world .. for the better. We will do WHATEVER it takes to make her life even just the tiniest bit easier. We are still waiting for few applications to be processed, there for we      are not exactly sure the price of the training. Figured we would start small, and update this page, as we find out more info. THANK YOU ALL< AND GOD BLESS!!!!