Our Story
My name is Karen Lisa Shain. I am a single mother to a lovely eight year old girl. Since birth, my daughter has had sensory processing challenges and anxiety. The older she gets, the harder it has been for her to cope despite early intervention and ongoing care throughout her whole life. She is autistic with a PDA profile. She struggles with things that most of us take for granted or don’t think twice about.
Because my daughter feels overstimulated in the outside world and inside the house as well, she spends most of her time in fight, flight, freeze or fawn (masking) mode, which naturally creates a threat to her nervous system and as a result she has a tremendous amount of anxiety in her mind, body and soul. Additional influence on her neuroception is her PDA - which stands for pervasive drive for autonomy or pathological demand avoidance. Even things she wants to do, she can’t.
I have worked hard to educate myself and do everything in my power to help my daughter live her very best life. As part of this process, I have spent many hours learning about the benefits and life-changing impact a service dog can provide for autistic children with the challenges that my daughter experiences every day. Through my research, I discovered the Service Dog Training Center in Israel and began the application process. In working with the staff of the program, we have determined that a service dog would greatly benefit my daughter and our family (we live in Israel).
We were accepted into the program and if we can raise enough money, we will be able to continue the training process with TAZ, the service dog that has been assigned to my daughter.
Service dogs, unlike regular pet dogs or emotional support dogs, are allowed to go almost everywhere and that is what my daughter needs. Each service dog is trained according to the needs of the person it will assist. A service dog can help my daughter with:
Meltdowns:
Service dogs can sense and feel the emotions of people they tend to or a potential threat to their nervous system and sometimes reduce the severity or circumvent the onset of a meltdown.
Sensory Support:
My daughter needs sensory stimulation throughout the day and service dogs can be trained to provide deep pressure. A service dog can also help to be a barrier when there is too much sensory input.
Reassurance During Anxiety:
A service dog can be trained to detect an oncoming panic attack and help the child before it becomes fully realized. The dog can actually smell the rising levels of cortisol.
Companionship and Social Engagement:
Service dogs can quickly bond with children. This helps the child experience friendship, which further supports a child with social anxiety and becoming comfortable around others.
Please help!
Training a service dog is an expensive endeavor. The service dogs are bred from other service dogs and are screened for any health issues. The hope is to provide a healthy and happy working dog for as many years as possible. They are typically placed around two years of age (about how long it takes to complete their training). Training each dog costs $46,000 US dollars (150,000 Israeli shekels) (including living, training, travel, and veterinary expenses).
It seems like an exorbitant amount of money for an animal, but the service dog will be highly trained just to help my daughter specifically to her needs and will work for 8-10 years, 24/7.
I am a single mother and National Insurance does not cover service dogs in Israel.
So please reach into your hearts to help us and send this to anyone else you think can help us raise $46,000 US dollars (150,000 Israeli shekels) for TAZ, the service dog to help my daughter.
I am very grateful to you for a donation of ANY amount. This platform accepts currencies from every country.
Hopefully, one day we will be able to come and visit you. Of course we would bring TAZ, the service dog!
Lots of love and many blessings,
Karen Lisa Shain
