An Assistance Dog for KP

We need to raise a total of £15,000 for the programme with Autism Dogs who have approved our application for a full trained Autism Assitance dog.

We are raising funds for an Autism Assistance Dog for Kyle, who struggles with proprioception and sensory issues, sleeping, anxiety and unfamiliar situations or changes in routine.

We sadly lost our 3 year old family pet labrador a year ago due to severe epilepsy. She is the black labrador pictured with Kyle.

We believe a fully trained bespoke therapy dog from the charity Autism Dogs will have an amazing, practical and lasting impact on Kyle and our family. The dog will be trained for Kyle's needs and we hope it will greatly assist him offering deep pressure, comfort and companionship and will be able to pre empt some meltdowns before they occur.

Autism Dogs Charity information:

Run by autistic people for autistic people, Autism Dogs Charity is the only organisation training Autism Assistance Dogs where the majority of the team are autistic.

Through our own lived experiences, internal training, and a wealth of knowledge held by our team, we are able to learn more both about ourselves and how we can extend that understanding across our beneficiaries and families. Our qualifications and approach to the Programme enable us to deliver the Programme responsibly, with the organisation being acknowledged for dealing with some of the most complex and challenging of cases successfully.

Autism Assistance Dogs can help their handlers in so many areas, including sensory regulation, diet and food tolerances, sleep, communication and social interaction, confidence and self reliance, and responding to anxiety, self harm, and meltdowns.

The effect that Autism Assistance Dogs have on their handlers and their families can be lifechanging... Not all superheroes wear capes; some have a furry coat, four paws, and a big wet nose ❤

Autistic people are often unable to go out and take part in activities they enjoy due to how overwhelming accessing public places can be.

Our Assistance Dogs can help their handlers to access public places by responding to anxiety, regulating sensory input, performing their specialist tasks, and providing reassurance. All of this can give our handlers the confidence to access public places, and allow them to enjoy their favourite activities with their best friend by their side!

The Autism Dogs Charity have already successfully provided dogs to handlers that are very similar to our needs and we are very hopeful and excited about the potential impact this has for our family.

They are also recognised by ADI and the National Autistic Society amongst others, which gives us great confidence in their programme.

As parents, we have rearranged our working lives and both of us are Freelancers to be able to facilitate the care needs we must provide for Kyle. Having a child with additional needs requires a much different approach in order to complete the child care, appointments, administration, forms, education, strategies and flexibility we require to function. We do this on very little sleep and often have to avoid situations other families might consider 'normal' such as food shopping, trips to busy places as we must anticipate the impact it has on Kyle.

This unfortunately means at the moment we have no additional savings in place to fund the programme ourselves. We, like so many other working families, are hand-to-mouth, just getting by.

We are very grateful for your consideration and if you can spare a donation to our fund, Thank you.

Simon and Tanya