Join Jacynda’s Journey: A New Companion, A New Leash on Life

I am Tricia Kamba, a mother of eight children, ten grandchildren - one of which I raise.

The idea of a Go Fund Me was introduced a couple of years ago, and at the time I could not have imagined saying yes. This is vulnerable to ask for support, and I would not be asking if it was not incredibly important. Time is now of the essence, and I need to act. My daughter needs a new successor service dog immediately.

Our daughter, Jacynda, is almost 32 years old. She is very active and loves the outdoors. She works a few shifts at a greenhouse/vegetable garden, enjoys swimming , bike riding , wall-climbing, making beaded animal keychains, listening to music and dancing, singing karaoke, playing card games, watching movies, is learning to ski, and she empathetically cares for animals and adores spending time with her family at special events. She was born with a non-inherited chromosomal deletion called Prader-Willi-Syndrome. Key features affect all aspects of her life–she feels insatiable, unending hunger and needs distraction from food-foraging. Every food source where she lives is locked. Paired with slow metabolism, low growth rate, incomplete puberty, she can gain twice the calories on half of the intake of a normal adult. Low muscle tone makes it difficult for her to accomplish the extra daily exercise that her body needs to maintain a proper weight free of diabetes. She has moderate intellectual impairment and delayed fine and gross motor skills. Some of the main issues from this syndrome are behavioral, and she has a rigid thought process, perseverates, experiences obsessive-compulsive tendencies, skin picking, tantrums, and can run away (AWOL) when upset, to steal food, or just to wander and observe nature. She has difficulty with peer relationships and social integration, although she craves this. She also developed Bipolar Not Otherwise Specified as a teenager. She has secondary diagnoses like ADHD, anxiety, learning disabilities, and her sensory integration dysfunction are part of her neuro-divergent Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis. When she was little, she earned the name of Goldilocks in our neighborhood, after escaping, crawling through old milk box entrances into houses, foraging for food, then falling asleep.

Our family has developed patience, understanding, and humor while growing up with Jacynda. We live just above the North Saskatchewan river in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Jacynda has always been supported by her pets and especially dogs. She has participated in equine physical therapy as a child and youth. Our cats loved to be groomed by her. Before owning a service dog, I had trained our family golden retriever for search and rescue to help find her when she disappeared. Her classroom throughout high school had a Portuguese water dog that she spent many hours helping to take care of. When she was a victim of a difficult sexual assault, a facilities dog from the Zebra Society was by her side and comforted her during the long court and deliberations. We rehomed an Australian labradoodle and spaniel mix that qualified after months of work for owner-trained service dog (with the support of an experienced guide dog trainer). Opie dog has worked with Jacynda for almost eight years now and the province retires service dogs at age ten.

With her own service dog, Opie, Jacynda shows such pride and social ability when out and about in the community, and knows it is her job to stay with her dog. She has decreased the AWOL incidents from daily or weekly to only three episodes in the last eight years. This is highly significant. He also intuitively performs many commands such as deep pressure leans, chin rests, tuck and paws up for distraction, nudges for low-arousal state, and especially cuddle when she is upset. He helps her co-regulate and they are best friends and she would be very lonely without him. I am usually the handler (or sometimes Jacynda with her staff) and Jacynda’s main job is to love him and she pets him a lot. It’s a modified three-way attachment model. Now she is more mature and probably capable of becoming the main handler, with occasional support. Her dog Opie has been a game-changer for our family. He wears a GPS tracker and keeps them both happy and safe together. Unfortunately, Opie is in his last year of public access as a service dog.

We are now looking at accessing a fully-trained labrador retriever service dog from a certified organization (Summit), that will be her new best friend and be able to support Jacynda through the next stages of life. Presently, I am not able to dedicate the time, money and energy needed to choose the right dog and do the training myself. When Opie can’t accompany her at the hospital, he comes with me vest-off to the progressive education school where I teach and acts like a very empathetic, highly effective and playful therapy dog with students. We have a high neuro-divergent population, and they love him too. He can continue to do this in retirement years for as long as he would like. The plan is for Jacynda to start her new placement farther from home with the new service dog later in spring.

Currently, Jacynda’s complex profile is pretty well-managed physically, socially and mentally due to the help of her family and friends, her doctors, specialists, therapists, aides, her whole mental health team, and of course her dog. She has not had success with group homes and agencies living in big cities, and stays at Alberta Hospital on weekdays and comes home for weekends. We are preparing to have her move out into a smaller community, and having a successor dog to support her will make a marked difference during this transition. Since Jacynda is an adult and does not meet the typical criteria for service dogs, no agencies nor organizations here provide service dogs for her without great cost. We have chosen to work with Summit Service Dogs of southern Alberta. They are preparing one of their dogs with a balanced temperament of right energy for activities and then the grounding calmness needed when called for. A letter of support from them that describes how Jacynda will benefit is attached. Jacynda really enjoys swimming, sledding, playing fetch and bike riding with her dog. She needs to be active in all seasons and walking her dog really facilitates this. Her dog would get plenty of off-vest/off-leash time to play and socialize with other dogs too.

Our goal is to raise $28,000 (Canadian dollar / approximately $19,517 USD). The financial breakdown includes the basic cost of a fully trained lab from their breeding pool–$25,000. We also estimate (on the lower end) $1,000 for Jacynda’s new staff training, $1,000 for the organization’s cost for travel and accommodations to her new site, and $1,000 for our family’s travel and accommodation costs to the Summit facility for matching and training. My husband and I are definitely not in a financial position with our budget to create this miracle for Jacynda. Because of her hybrid and institutionalized living situation, Jacynda hasn’t been receiving any assured income for the disabled from the province of Alberta (AISH). She still deserves and needs a replacement service dog. That is why we are involving you. Our timeline mandates that we collect a $5,000 deposit due immediately to formally work with Summit, the balance of the $20,000 is due upon delivery of the dog in three to four months, and the fees related to the extra training costs are dues as they occur in this process. We realize this is a quick turnaround. We will cover pet insurance, regular vet care, and Jacynda recycles bottles to off-set the cost of quality dog food.

Thank you for listening to our story. Attached is a photo of Jacynda and her older dog Opie, as well as one of our family when the children were younger and one with the pets and her nephew. Any amount that you donate to Jacynda’s cause will greatly impact her quality of life. This is my first time to be on social media, in order to track the progress of our goal, and I am humbled to be able to use crowd-source funding. I will provide updates on this platform to let you know how things progress.

Warmly–Tricia Tingey and Bakatubia Kabeya Jean-Eddy Kamba (mother and father, guardians and trustees of Jacynda)

Note: Given the sensitive nature of this request and the new changes happening in Jacynda’s life, I kindly ask that you refrain from discussing Opie’s retirement, a potential successor dog, or any new living arrangements with her at this time, as it may be too overwhelming. Thank you for your understanding.

To learn more about Summit: summitservicedogs.com

A link to a letter of support on behalf of Jacynda from Summit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wq0hiNewRB2wEf72dMxfsyelm6vGHvwK/view?usp=sharing