Vika is a beautiful 16 year old who has severe Autism & is deaf along with other disabilities. She was adopted from an Eastern European country at the age of 6. Her battle with self harm began in the orphanage, and has persisted relentlessly. In 2023 she hurt herself so badly that she detached one of her retinas, leaving her blind in one eye. Our fear for her is that she will damage her remaining eye, leaving her both completely deaf and completely blind. This would be catastrophic for her. We continue to battle self harm, so this remains a serious concern. However, we have found a source of hope.

We found Glad Wags, where they train service dogs. They have the ability to train a dog for many tasks for her: hearing related tasks alerting her to safety; guiding her in the community, where her low vision is an issue; psychiatric tasks; preventing her from eloping; and most importantly: interrupting her self harm. In the past, our trainer has seen self harm diminish and even disappear after the placement of a service dog trained to interrupt self harm. We are boldly hoping and praying for this outcome for her.

Every day is another chance for her to injure herself, so we are working as quickly as possible, and are asking for your help. The cost of the specialized dog training is $9800. This seems like a lot of money, but is on the low end of the spectrum for service dogs, especially for one that can perform so many tasks. The dog is ready to start training as soon as we can raise the initial funding.

Please join with us to bring hope for healing to Vika. If you would like it to be tax deductible, you can donate to Glad Wags in our name, they are a 501c3 charity.

https://gladwagsservicedogs.com/

Thank you.