[Applause]
this is Makayla
one night when Makayla was six years old
she had a seizure that was so terrible
she nearly died no one was there to help
and it was a very very close call
Makayla has a condition that causes her
seizures to only occur when she’s asleep
as you can imagine this makes managing
her safety incredibly difficult ever
since that night
Michaela’s parents have been too scared
to ever let her sleep alone
however Mikael is 12 years old now and
as any 12 year old will enthusiastically
tell you Makayla needs her independence
over the years medications have helped
to reduce Makayla seizures but they’ve
never eliminated them completely and no
monitoring system has ever proved
effective enough to discern Makayla
seizures from her normal sleeping
tossing and turning Dreaming self until
this is Makayla as a new nighttime
routine as you can see a lot has changed
for Makayla this is a canine phone it is
designed to call any number that is
programmed when the button is pushed
once the button is pushed it will call
that number and then play whatever
message is pre-recorded on the device
the organization I run Diggity Dog
service dogs trained Ferris Makayla
service dog to use the canine alert
button to call for help whenever Makayla
had a seizure you can see what this
looks like in the following video
that is of the first time that Michaela
met Ferris and was testing his response
if you watch closely she will be
mimicking the behaviors that she often
has during the seizure she will sleep
pretend to sleep for a few minutes and
then you will see her subtly begin to
shake at that point you’ll see Ferris
as you can imagine this was a game
changer for Makayla and her family when
most people hear the term service dog
they picture seeing-eye dogs for
individuals that are blind seeing-eye
dogs also called Guide Dogs are the
oldest form of service dogs and they
began being produced in the 1920s it
would take nearly 30 years until other
types of service dogs began to emerge in
the form of hearing assistance dogs
these dogs would alert people to things
like smoke detectors going off or
someone knocking at the door mobility
assistance dogs would follow soon after
and they are truly amazing they do
incredible things let’s watch a few
examples of our dogs in training they
can do things such as find your keys you
help you get undressed yes good boy yes
thank you good boy or retrieve various
items upon request these days service
dogs are doing more than ever before
they are doing things like monitoring
the blood sugar levels of people with
diabetes and assisting with individuals
that have autism and PTSD for most of
our clients with psychiatric service
dogs medication and therapy plays an
important role in their recovery or
treatment however our service dogs do
things that neither of those things can
they do things like interrupting
self-destructive behaviors such as
scratching cutting hair pulling or nail
biting lists watch this video that shows
one of our dogs persistently
interrupting somebody biting their nails
the dogs alert to these behaviors that
most of the time the clients do not
realize they are doing and if these
behaviors were and they were allowed to
persist they would often escalate into
full-blown panic attacks or sensory
overload meltdowns where the individual
actually loses control of their
well-being by interrupting and alerting
to such behaviors the dogs enable the
individuals to use touching the dogs as
a means of grounding themselves in the
moment or as a prompt to use other
coping mechanisms that may be at their
disposal
those can be things like medication or
taking a moment to practice breathing
techniques let’s take a moment and look
what you see here is actually in a
behavior we call visit this is actually
called deep pressure therapy also Co
sometimes called deep ET and what deep
pressure therapy is is the process of
applying pressure to the body in order
to relax the nervous system what happens
when you applied deep pressure to the
body is you actually switch from the
sympathetic nervous system to the
parasympathetic nervous system you
actually switch from fight-or-flight
mode into rest and digest mode this feel
physiological response is exactly why
swaddling a baby often causes them to
stop crying
it’s also why they give trauma patients
weighted blankets or why Thunder shirts
work for dogs which some of you may be
familiar with a psychiatric service dogs
help in other ways too they are there to
extend people’s personal space in public
just that extra foot or two that can
able them to cope in crowded places for
a lot of people that extra foot or two
can be the difference between them being
able to manage themselves in a certain
situation or not they are also there to
do things like wake people from
nightmares which no medication or
therapy can do for others they are there
to remind them to take their medications
medications that are offer is often
essential for their stability
additionally the dogs often remind
people of erratic behaviors behaviors
that are sometimes difficult for them to
hear about from their loved ones yet
from the dogs it’s neutral they’re able
to hear it I’d like to introduce you to
a client of ours named Jason Jason was a
productive member of society he’s the
father of a young girl a working
surgical nurse technician until he
experienced a trauma that was so severe
it left him terrified and isolated
before
/ came into my life I was so terrified
of people and the outside world that I
couldn’t leave my basement and I had not
left the house for a year and a half
before I got Harper my inability to be
around a lot of people I was left with
very few options of what to do and when
it was suggested to me that a service
dog might be a good idea it opened up a
whole new thing in my mind that I could
actually get help and feel better
without having to deal with other people
so it gave me a different Avenue than
just medicating myself to the point
where I was not there anymore I don’t
know where I’d be without him
amazingly as Jason said when he came to
us to receive his service dog Harper he
hadn’t left his home alone in over a
year and a half less than two weeks
later he took his daughter to
Disneyworld with Harper of course and in
fact they had such a good time they know
now go back every single year this is an
exciting time to be involved with
service dogs we are finding more and
more ways to help people we are finding
an increasing number of conditions that
we are able to train the dogs to help
with we able to prevent repeated
institutionalization we’re able to
decrease people’s dependency on
pharmaceuticals and we are able to
decrease people’s dependency on others
we are able to really actually give them
a sense of independence and we are
actually saving lives with dogs like
Ferris and his friends some of you may
have noticed an increase in the number
of service dogs that you have
encountered in recent
years there’s good reason for this
service dogs have a more diverse role in
it’s difficult not to be curious when
you encounter someone in public that is
not visibly disabled and yet has a
service dog
however hopefully now you will be able
to understand some of the tasks that
these dogs perform and why is it it is
so essential that this these dogs remain
focused when they are working in public
situations training service dogs is an
incredibly costly and time-consuming
endeavor it means that the organizations
that do produce them have had to be
incredibly ingenious in the ways that
they produce them some organizations
have partnered with prisons and trained
the prisoners to train the service dogs
our organization has partnered with
University of Massachusetts Amherst and
the students are able to get credit for
fostering and training our service dogs
please allow me now to introduce a few
of our service dogs and training these
students have decided to take on the
colossal challenge of deciding to train
a service dog during their college years
I cannot emphasize enough exactly the
effort that this takes it requires an
incredible amount of time management an
incredible amount of patience absolute
consistency and an utterly absurd amount
of time however the dogs that they train
go on to change other people’s lives
forever and I believe the students that
choose to do it their lives are changed
forever as well it’s our hope that
through this talk you will understand
a little-known yet very powerful
treatment option that is available to
people and understand a little bit more
about how to interact appropriately with
service dogs that you encounter in
public thank you so much [Applause]
this is Makayla
one night when Makayla was six years old
she had a seizure that was so terrible
she nearly died no one was there to help
and it was a very very close call
Makayla has a condition that causes her
seizures to only occur when she’s asleep
as you can imagine this makes managing
her safety incredibly difficult ever
since that night
Michaela’s parents have been too scared
to ever let her sleep alone
however Mikael is 12 years old now and
as any 12 year old will enthusiastically
tell you Makayla needs her independence
over the years medications have helped
to reduce Makayla seizures but they’ve
never eliminated them completely and no
monitoring system has ever proved
effective enough to discern Makayla
seizures from her normal sleeping
tossing and turning Dreaming self until
this is Makayla as a new nighttime
routine as you can see a lot has changed
for Makayla this is a canine phone it is
designed to call any number that is
programmed when the button is pushed
once the button is pushed it will call
that number and then play whatever
message is pre-recorded on the device
the organization I run Diggity Dog
service dogs trained Ferris Makayla
service dog to use the canine alert
button to call for help whenever Makayla
had a seizure you can see what this
looks like in the following video
that is of the first time that Michaela
met Ferris and was testing his response
if you watch closely she will be
mimicking the behaviors that she often
has during the seizure she will sleep
pretend to sleep for a few minutes and
then you will see her subtly begin to
shake at that point you’ll see Ferris
as you can imagine this was a game
changer for Makayla and her family when
most people hear the term service dog
they picture seeing-eye dogs for
individuals that are blind seeing-eye
dogs also called Guide Dogs are the
oldest form of service dogs and they
began being produced in the 1920s it
would take nearly 30 years until other
types of service dogs began to emerge in
the form of hearing assistance dogs
these dogs would alert people to things
like smoke detectors going off or
someone knocking at the door mobility
assistance dogs would follow soon after
and they are truly amazing they do
incredible things let’s watch a few
examples of our dogs in training they
can do things such as find your keys you
help you get undressed yes good boy yes
thank you good boy or retrieve various
items upon request these days service
dogs are doing more than ever before
they are doing things like monitoring
the blood sugar levels of people with
diabetes and assisting with individuals
that have autism and PTSD for most of
our clients with psychiatric service
dogs medication and therapy plays an
important role in their recovery or
treatment however our service dogs do
things that neither of those things can
they do things like interrupting
self-destructive behaviors such as
scratching cutting hair pulling or nail
biting lists watch this video that shows
one of our dogs persistently
interrupting somebody biting their nails
the dogs alert to these behaviors that
most of the time the clients do not
realize they are doing and if these
behaviors were and they were allowed to
persist they would often escalate into
full-blown panic attacks or sensory
overload meltdowns where the individual
actually loses control of their
well-being by interrupting and alerting
to such behaviors the dogs enable the
individuals to use touching the dogs as
a means of grounding themselves in the
moment or as a prompt to use other
coping mechanisms that may be at their
disposal
those can be things like medication or
taking a moment to practice breathing
techniques let’s take a moment and look
what you see here is actually in a
behavior we call visit this is actually
called deep pressure therapy also Co
sometimes called deep ET and what deep
pressure therapy is is the process of
applying pressure to the body in order
to relax the nervous system what happens
when you applied deep pressure to the
body is you actually switch from the
sympathetic nervous system to the
parasympathetic nervous system you
actually switch from fight-or-flight
mode into rest and digest mode this feel
physiological response is exactly why
swaddling a baby often causes them to
stop crying
it’s also why they give trauma patients
weighted blankets or why Thunder shirts
work for dogs which some of you may be
familiar with a psychiatric service dogs
help in other ways too they are there to
extend people’s personal space in public
just that extra foot or two that can
able them to cope in crowded places for
a lot of people that extra foot or two
can be the difference between them being
able to manage themselves in a certain
situation or not they are also there to
do things like wake people from
nightmares which no medication or
therapy can do for others they are there
to remind them to take their medications
medications that are offer is often
essential for their stability
additionally the dogs often remind
people of erratic behaviors behaviors
that are sometimes difficult for them to
hear about from their loved ones yet
from the dogs it’s neutral they’re able
to hear it I’d like to introduce you to
a client of ours named Jason Jason was a
productive member of society he’s the
father of a young girl a working
surgical nurse technician until he
experienced a trauma that was so severe
it left him terrified and isolated
before
/ came into my life I was so terrified
of people and the outside world that I
couldn’t leave my basement and I had not
left the house for a year and a half
before I got Harper my inability to be
around a lot of people I was left with
very few options of what to do and when
it was suggested to me that a service
dog might be a good idea it opened up a
whole new thing in my mind that I could
actually get help and feel better
without having to deal with other people
so it gave me a different Avenue than
just medicating myself to the point
where I was not there anymore I don’t
know where I’d be without him
amazingly as Jason said when he came to
us to receive his service dog Harper he
hadn’t left his home alone in over a
year and a half less than two weeks
later he took his daughter to
Disneyworld with Harper of course and in
fact they had such a good time they know
now go back every single year this is an
exciting time to be involved with
service dogs we are finding more and
more ways to help people we are finding
an increasing number of conditions that
we are able to train the dogs to help
with we able to prevent repeated
institutionalization we’re able to
decrease people’s dependency on
pharmaceuticals and we are able to
decrease people’s dependency on others
we are able to really actually give them
a sense of independence and we are
actually saving lives with dogs like
Ferris and his friends some of you may
have noticed an increase in the number
of service dogs that you have
encountered in recent
years there’s good reason for this
service dogs have a more diverse role in
it’s difficult not to be curious when
you encounter someone in public that is
not visibly disabled and yet has a
service dog
however hopefully now you will be able
to understand some of the tasks that
these dogs perform and why is it it is
so essential that this these dogs remain
focused when they are working in public
situations training service dogs is an
incredibly costly and time-consuming
endeavor it means that the organizations
that do produce them have had to be
incredibly ingenious in the ways that
they produce them some organizations
have partnered with prisons and trained
the prisoners to train the service dogs
our organization has partnered with
University of Massachusetts Amherst and
the students are able to get credit for
fostering and training our service dogs
please allow me now to introduce a few
of our service dogs and training these
students have decided to take on the
colossal challenge of deciding to train
a service dog during their college years
I cannot emphasize enough exactly the
effort that this takes it requires an
incredible amount of time management an
incredible amount of patience absolute
consistency and an utterly absurd amount
of time however the dogs that they train
go on to change other people’s lives
forever and I believe the students that
choose to do it their lives are changed
forever as well it’s our hope that
through this talk you will understand
a little-known yet very powerful
treatment option that is available to
people and understand a little bit more
about how to interact appropriately with
service dogs that you encounter in
public thank you so much [Applause]
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