Help Ben Transition to a New Service Dog

Gordon has been Ben's medical alert dog for 7 years. They have been through a lot together. Gordon is aging, and due to the stress of the severity of his job and Ben's medical needs, he will be ready to retire within the next couple of years.

Ben was born with DAND syndrome and is case #7 in the world, so we have had a lot to learn. He also has secondary diagnoses of autism, intractable epilepsy, and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome. What all of this means is that Ben has developmental delay and frequent, life-threatening seizures. Gordon has been providing seizure support to Ben through the worst of Ben's illness. We finally found a medication that helps Ben, and he has gone from many seizures per day to about four per month. However, it is still easy for Dave and me to miss these seizures. We really need the extra set of eyes and extra senses a medically trained seizure dog can bring. Gordon really, and truly, changed our lives. We cannot imagine being without him. But he has worked hard, and it is time for us to begin the process of training a new dog to take his place.

We have chosen to work with https://www.sitservicedogs.com/ in Illinois. There is a lot of support for families, they will help us build a community with other service dog families, and we will have regular check-ins to see how things are going and correct any issues. We have already been accepted to the program, and so far, it has been a wonderful experience.

Training a service dog is an expensive and time-consuming process. It will likely be two years before we meet Ben's new dog. At that time, Dave, Ben, and I will all travel to a training camp together and stay for 5 days to teach me how to be the handler and help Ben begin the bonding process. Then we will come home and begin our new life together.

For those wondering about Gordon, he will officially retire but will be able to remain with our family. Maybe he will teach the new dog some of his special tricks, like alerting when Ben is doing something dangerous.