Latest news with #serviceDog
CTV News
7 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Montreal-area nurse and mother of 3 says high cost of a service dog is holding her back
A Montreal-area nurse who has Ehlers–Danlos syndrome needs a service dog but has to pay $35,000 to get one. For Josee St-Onge, tasks as simple as preparing a meal can become a painful endeavour because she suffers from a disease called Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, a form of hypermobility disorder. 'Most people think of hypermobility as just a joint instability issue,' explained the mother of three. 'But in fact it encompasses so much more. So a lot of us are affected neurologically, with our digestion, skin issues, difficulty managing our blood pressure, our temperature. And of course, the biggest issue is damage from all the instability in the joints over time.' Something as simple as opening a door or bumping into someone can lead to joints dislocating. 'I don't have any ligaments supporting my wrist and most of my fingers are very, very mobile, so they tend to pop out very easily.' St-Onge, who is a registered nurse, works part-time from home, interacting with patients. But what she says she needs the most is a service dog that could help her with her mobility. 'The first thing is to really minimize the impact of my day-to-day on my hands and try to preserve as much mobility and strength as possible,' explains St-Onge. 'So she'll be helping me. You know, open doors, open my stove, my fridge. So she's trained to be able to go get my phone, go get me water, retrieve dropped items.' Quebec's two agencies that provide service dogs are overwhelmed with the demand from people with physical or mental conditions. The normal wait time would be at least two years. But right now, they're not even accepting new applications. 'You know, it breaks our heart to receive all these calls, to receive all these emails and that we just can't help. We feel helpless at times,' said John Agionicolaitis from the Asista foundation, which provides dogs for people suffering from PTSD, anxiety and other mental-health issues. The cost is also prohibitive without the backing of a charity. The MIRA Foundation tries to provide service dogs at no cost to those in need. But the financing isn't large enough to provide a dog to everyone who needs it. 'We calculate our dogs in the average of all of our programs. So we estimate it at, like, $35,000, but I think now we should say more. So it's really, really expensive,' explained Aurelie Tremblay from the MIRA Foundation. St-Onge did find help at the Summit Assistance Dogs Center in Medicine Hat, Alberta. But she can't afford the $35,000 investment. Despite having a job, she had to turn to the public for help. 'I'm very disappointed in the lack of access for me, especially for people with invisible disabilities. It's so hard to access any type of support or funding from the government. And the reality is our expenses are so much higher than the average person, you know, because each month we have specific medications or mobility aids or we have to take more time off work to go see a specialist.' With the help of the community in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, she has managed to raise half the amount needed, which includes the trip to Alberta's training centre. 'Over the past six months, we've held music events, we've held trivia nights online, raffles, we've had the GoFundMe link that's been live. We've been really working hard to try to get my story out there. And that's what's brought us almost $18,000 so far.' And if St-Onge can come up with the balance, she says she'll be able to once again have a resemblance to a normal life.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Meet Tugger, the adorable Phillies service dog honoring the memory of Tug McGraw.
The Philadelphia Phillies are paying homage to one of their most charismatic players from the past in a delightful way. Frank Edwin "Tug" McGraw spent 10 of his 19 MLB seasons as a reliever with the NL East team. He was 49-37 with 94 saves as a Phillie. Now, the team has decided to honor McGraw's memory through a service dog in training named "Tugger." Don't confuse Tugger with a mascot he will be much more one day. Tug McGraw was a Marine before his baseball career and Tugger will wind up being the service dog of a veteran with a disability, thanks to Team Foster and Warrior Canine Connection. Tug McGraw's son is country star Tim McGraw and he commented on Tugger through the team: "My father loved the Phillies and took immense pride in his service with the United States Marine Corps," Tim McGraw said. "The thought that this little pup will one day contribute to enhancing the quality of life for a veteran is truly remarkable. We can never do enough to honor our veterans, and I am certain my father would have felt deeply honored to have Tugger named in his memory." This article originally appeared on The List Wire: Service dog in training honors memory of Phillies great Tug McGraw
New York Times
01-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Illness Took My Mother's Independence, but It Gave Us Something Precious
On a breezy evening in the year 2000, Mom walked barefoot out to the freezer in her garage, as a fourth-generation Californian is wont to do. But as she dug through the cave of icy corn dogs and Costco salmon, she was distracted by a startling sensation: Her right foot was cold atop the wind-chilled pavement, but her left foot was burning hot. Multiple sclerosis is best described as a disease of self-sabotage. As the body eats away at its nerves' protective exterior, the nervous system loses its ability to fire, leading over time to various debilitations. For Mom, this meant losing control of the left side of her body. Over the course of five years, she went from walking with a cane to supporting herself with her service dog's harness to eventually using a walker. If you were to map the development of her disability, it might look like Rudolph Zallinger's illustration of human evolution in reverse: beginning upright on two feet but then morphing into a hunched-over figure, arms hanging like pendulums. My mom's transformation was hard for me to accept. I was a moody teen, more concerned with my high school microdramas than with my mother's ailments. I blamed her for everything that went wrong in my life, without ever really considering how she might be privately struggling. The one tradition we did share was our trips to the mall, where we tried on clothes and ate our favorite Cobb salads. But eventually even those visits dwindled. In college, I finally realized that my mother could no longer trawl through the shoe aisle. Years later, living in New York, I saw a retrospective at the Met of the artist Alice Neel and was moved by a nude self-portrait she painted as an older woman, in which she sits in a striped armchair. There was so much dignity and defiance in her eyes, despite the sagging skin below them. A month later, when my parents visited, I knew I had to share what I had seen with my mom. Canes and handicap placards made Mom feel, and look, older than she was, but Neel demonstrated how aging could be beautiful and enchanting. And while museum-supplied wheelchairs were a few sizes too big for my mom's tiny frame, I knew she would enjoy visiting as much as I would. Hours passed quickly as I pushed her around the exhibit, moving toward the portrait of Neel. By this point, my mom had reluctantly accepted that riding in a wheelchair was the quickest way to navigate an airport terminal, and she had already bickered with a friend about whether she needed help getting around a London rose garden. But there is something different, for me, about pushing my mom around a museum, whispering in her ear as if she were a baby in a stroller; I'm more responsible for her now than she is for me. Looking at art from a wheelchair might have begun as a painful development for my mother, but it has since blossomed into something alive and serendipitous, one of the best remaining activities we can share together — and, somewhat surprisingly, a lesson about how to actually start seeing. There are studies that show that people look at a piece of art in a museum for an average of just 27 seconds; students of art history may be familiar with John Berger's idea that visitors are overwhelmed by 'their own culpable inability to concentrate on more than a few of these works,' and so they can't distinguish the good from the bad. But seeing art with a disabled person requires a more thoughtful, more patient and — most important — slower approach. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
29-06-2025
- CBS News
Gilbert Hortman, Melissa and Marks beloved dog, remembered
The Hortman's dog, Gilbert, was also laid to rest Saturday The Hortman's dog, Gilbert, was also laid to rest Saturday The Hortman's dog, Gilbert, was also laid to rest Saturday Inside Allied Emergency Veterinary Service in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, doctors work fast and against time, June 14th was no different. Dr. Brett Rabe was working when FBI agents rushed Gilbert Hortman through the front doors with multiple gunshot wounds. "We immediately started stabilizing him providing him with pain medication," Rabe said. Gilbert was alert, responsive and friendly despite the trauma he endured. He was shot in the same tragedy that took the lives of Speaker Emerita Melissa and Mark Hortman. "There's just a special pain you feel when you see something like that done to an innocent animal," he said. Ultimately, Gilbert was humanely euthanized by Colin and Sophie Hortman But it was how the Hortman's adult children handled the day that struck Rabe. "Their grace and composure has to reflect on Rep. Hortman and her husband," Rabe said. "They had to be remarkable people to have kids that were as graceful and calm as they were. To the family, Gilbert was more than a pet. He started his life as a service dog before becoming the heart of the Hortman family. Friday, he received the kind of farewell heroes receive becoming the first animal to lie in state—right next to his partners in life. Not far away, his furry friends standing guard. In the face of heartbreak—the clinic that worked tirelessly to save him made a choice to turn pain into purpose. They launched a fundraiser "Gilbert's Legacy: K9 Heroes Fund" — to support the emergency and specialty care needs of local police department's service dogs. For more information, click here.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
New Castle County bids farewell to Nikko, beloved police service dog, and his handler
Surrounded by dozens of police officers, emergency medical personnel, community members, family and friends, New Castle County Police Master Cpl. Chris Gigliotti and Sgt. Nikko − an adored police service dog − bid farewell to the department on the morning of June 26. The duo, who began working together in April 2018, were celebrated in a retirement ceremony filled with milk bones, dog toys and a proclamation from the New Castle County Council. Combined, Gigliotti and Nikko have nearly 35 years of service with the county police. "I'm not too dumb to know why you're all really here," Gigliotti joked to the crowd as he glanced at his pup, who sat happily with a Lamb Chop toy in his mouth. "If I live to 300, I'll never forget the experience I've had with (Nikko)," Gigliotti added. Gigliotti, who joined the county police in June 1998, began his career in patrol before joining the department's community services unit in 2014. There, the idea to bring a service dog to the agency was born. After pitching the plan to his supervisors, the department agreed to partner Gigliotti with Nikko. Together, the two helped crime victims, attended community events, aided officers and other emergency personnel, and made community members smile. NIKKO JOINS NCCPD: NCCo police dog calms crime victims, and sometimes cops Nikko's addition also cemented New Castle County police as the first police agency in the Philadelphia region to have a service dog solely dedicated to community outreach and victim services. The department was also one of the first on the East Coast to have such a service animal. "When it comes to doing outreach, these two are top notch," New Castle County Police Chief Jamie Leonard said on June 26. "They have brought so much positive attention and so much humanization to this organization and this profession that 100 of us couldn't even do in double the amount of time." Nikko and Gigliotti's overwhelming success inspired a handful of other local agencies to add similar service animals. In 2021, Dover police announced the addition of Roy, a department service dog with functions similar to Nikko. A year and a half later, the New Castle County Courthouse added Vinn, a 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever mix specifically trained to provide calm to those participating in stressful court proceedings. COURTHOUSE PUP VINN: Why New Castle County courthouse is taking a dog to trial Several months later, Wilmington police announced Barry, an English Labrador retriever, had joined the agency. Barry attended Nikko's retirement celebration on June 26, eagerly giving him sniffs as he entered the county police conference room. Then, last year, the Delaware State Fire Commission introduced Ajax, a 2-year-old golden retriever-Labrador mix. Most recently, University of Delaware police added Patti, a support dog who will work with officers, the UD community and Newark as a whole. Many of the state's service dogs, including Nikko, were trained by Canine Companions for Independence, a national organization that provides service dogs to both organizations and people free of cost. During Nikko's time with the county police, retired Master Cpl. Kristen Hester also served as the pup's handler. Got a story tip or idea? Send to Isabel Hughes at ihughes@ For all things breaking news, follow her on X at @izzihughes_ This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: New Castle County Police's beloved service dog, handler retire
