Help Victoria Secure Her Service Dog Duke

Hello, My name is Victoria and I am a senior in High School and will be graduating at the end of May. My hope is to attend college in the fall and I am needing help paying for a service dog. This school year started out with me having seizures while I was in school and out in the community. I have had 4 since the beginning of the school year and it has really put a toll on what I have been able to do. For instance, I have missed out on going to party’s, driving, swimming, sleepovers, and really going anywhere by myself. I previously struggled with epilepsy from the ages of 6 to 10 and we believed that I had grown out of them. When I was struck with one on the first day of school in August it came as a major shock to me and my family. It was extremely scary and at first I was in denial that it even happened. Since then, we have gone to many doctors appointments. For example, we have gone to Children’s Hospital in Denver for an EEG (a scan of seizure activity in the brain), we have traveled to see different neurologists, therapists and have also had testing done to find what type of epilepsy I have this second time around.

 After many hours of research, we have discovered that there is no medicine for the type of epilepsy that I have which was very disheartening. 

Shortly after finding this out we researched service dogs for seizures. We have found the perfect puppy who is in training to be a service dog and his name is Duke. He had already started training when we came across him. He is a year and a half old and still has more training to go through. For example, specifically for me, he is being trained for anxiety and stress relief as we have been told that my seizures may be stress induced, he is also being trained to be a seizure alert and response dog. This means he will alert me before I have a seizure and then take care of me during and after an episode.

These service dogs can detect a seizure in advance by about 10-20 minutes. Duke is a very expensive dog as he has to go through an extensive amount of training. Specifically, he costs $25,000. We ask for your help in finding the money to be financially able to afford this. By being able to get him, I would be able to go back to a somewhat normal day-to-day life and would not live in constant fear of a seizure happening at the drop of a hat.

My family and I ask you to please support by donating and helping me obtain Duke as my service dog. I am looking forward to being able to not worry as much knowing Duke will be there to help and support me during my next episode. We are open to answering any and all questions so feel free to reach out to us as well. 

Thank you for your generous support,

-Kate, Bill, and Victoria