Main fundraiser photo

Service dog for our daughter, Ellie

UPDATE: DUE TO THE RECENT ANNOUNCEMENT OF RY-CON SERVICE DOG'S CLOSURE, WE'VE MOVED THIS CAMPAIGN TO https://www.gofundme.com/service-dog-for-ellie 


Our daughter Ellie was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder (SPD) at age 2 and, at age 3, she was diagnosed with stage 2 autism with both severe expressive and receptive language disorders. At age 4, she was diagnosed with epilepsy. Ellie is a happy, beautiful child who loves the simple things in life. Some days are really tough for her as she struggles to express her feelings and frustrations. Sometimes, she has seizures and we don’t know it (these seizures were confirmed with an overnight EEG brain scan). As scary as the seizures may be for her, they are also scary for us because we don’t always know when she’s having them.

We recently explored the option of getting Ellie a service dog to help her stay safe while also comforting her during moments of frustration or when she is experiencing a seizure. We recently visited Ry-Con Service Dogs in Raleigh, NC, where the non-profit organization specializes in acquisition, training, and placement of Briard service dogs that are specifically bred and trained for patients with autism, sensory disorders, epilepsy, and other similar special needs. These dogs can safely redirect kids away from streets, can alert family members to eminent seizures, and several other tasks relevant to Ellie.

When we made our visit to see if Ellie was a good candidate for one of these highly trained dogs, Ellie, who is normally afraid of larger animals, surprisingly came out of her shell and wanted to lead the dog, asserting herself in a way we have not seen before. We want to continue to see positive changes in her like the glimpses we saw at Ry-Con during our visit:





Are you willing to help us raise the money needed to get our beautiful, loving daughter a much-needed companion? As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Ry-Con Service Dogs is able to place their service dogs for a much lower cost than many service dog training outfits that we examined.


You can make a huge difference in Ellie’s life with your contribution. Amanda and I are also going to be contributing a minimum of $1,000 towards the service dog to make Ellie safer and more assertive and expressive in her communication!



Thank you for your generous support!

Donations 

  • Jared Gollnitz
    • $40 
    • 5 yrs

Organiser

Jared Gollnitz
Organiser
Raleigh, NC
Ry-Con Service Dogs
 
Registered charity
Donations are typically 100% tax-deductible in the US.

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