Life Hero: Paws for Thought
- Naomi Hulbert
- 27 June 2008
- Page 1 of 2 : single page
Assistance Dogs Australia chief executive Richard Lord. Photo credit: Justin
Alexander
, public
school education in Australia has gone to the dogs, as has the Work for the Dole program, and more than a few prison inmates are now barking mad – and loving it.Richard found a stray puppy near the airport when he was five years old, took it home and called it Sambo. Today, he’s CEO of Assistance Dogs Australia (ADA), an organisation that trains veritable super-dogs to help people with disabilities. Think guide dogs, but instead of just being your eyes, these dogs are also your arms, legs and voice.
ADA is Australia’s only accredited assistance dogs organisation and, as CEO, Richard knows more than a little of what it feels like to be a small business owner wearing many hats. With just nine permanent staff members, Richard does everything from planning long-term strategies to marketing, web presence, public demonstrations and, of course, dog-sitting.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Richard has found plenty of ways for his pups to help out in the community while they’re getting the socialisation skills that are so vital in their training. So far he’s put puppies in prison, dogs on the dole, and is now piloting a program that uses these very clever canines to teach reading skills to Year 2 and 3 students. Dogs that can read? Do tell.
If you’ve got it, flaunt it
Assistance dogs are trained to give people with disabilities more freedom and more opportunities to go out in public. The dog is not only your best mate; he’s your workmate, too.
If you’re quadriplegic and drop your phone or keys, you’re stuck until someone comes along. Having an assistance dog that can pick things up on command, and then drop them in your lap gives people with disabilities enormous freedom.
When approaching a pedestrian traffic light, the dog can jump up and press the button for you. Getting around your home becomes so much easier with a dog that can manage sliding doors, cupboards and pull open the front door for you. The dogs are even trained to bark when there’s a problem. You can tell your neighbours if they hear your dog barking, there’s probably something wrong.
An assistance dog can hit the panic button in your home, work light switches, drag you out of bed, take off your shoes, socks and jumper, and can even go to the fridge and get a beer for you. And yes, they can help to teach reading.
Paws for thought
Paws for Thought is a reading program designed for children with reading difficulties. It’s a great way to integrate the dogs’ training with a strong community need. We took our inspiration from a similar program that’s working really well in the States. Assistance dogs are used in more than 700 schools over there. The dog goes into the school and sits in a comfy chair in a quiet part of the library. The child reads to the dog, then the dog-handler rephrases the story, or poses questions through the dog, such as, “Rusty doesn’t understand what that word means. Could you explain it to him?” We piloted the program at Heathcote Primary School in NSW. The principal was sceptical at first, but now says he can’t believe the level of motivation it’s generated in the kids.
Stick to your objectives
Our dogs go into prisons and nursing homes. Being with older people and seeing how they cope in their homes is really good socialisation training for the dogs. Many people suffering from dementia find it therapeutic just to pat the dogs. It’s great for everyone.
As we only have nine staff, we have to be very careful to stay true to our core objective and not spread ourselves too thin. Our objective is to train the dogs to be given to people with physical disabilities, and to make a positive difference in that person’s life.
Most of our staff are trainers, but we also have a couple of events people and a couple of admin guys. Volunteers do the rest. The beauty of the program is that it meets the dogs’ needs as well. We can marry up community benefits with activities that are positive for our own training program.
Get your name out
We’re the ‘new dogs on the block’; so getting our name out there is essential. Guide dogs have been doing a wonderful job for people who are vision impaired for over 60 years now; when people see a Labrador or golden retriever in a special coat, they automatically think guide dogs. We have a lot of work to do to get the community to understand how we’re different, and help a different group of disabled Australians.
Using the internet is going to be vital in this campaign, and I know we really need to invest in our online presence. We had a good website, but nobody seemed to know about it. Now we use a lot of offline promotion to get the website known. The web address is on everything from dog jackets to all our documents, business cards and flyers.
It’s working. We’re getting more hits, we’ve increased the profile, and donations have improved remarkably. Linking the dogs to celebrities has also helped us build our media profile.
Keep improving
We’re currently upgrading our website. The upgrade will include areas where puppy-raisers can access all the information they need, such as training sessions, flea treatments, that sort of thing. ‘Sponsor a Puppy’ people will be able to log in to see a collection of ‘letters’ from their dogs, as well as information about where they can meet their sponsored puppy. It’s being built by an amazing young woman in Victoria, called Tanya. At the age of 19, Tanya was involved in a car accident on the way home from the college where she was studying teaching. Her best mate was killed and she ended up quadriplegic.
She was devastated when she realised she couldn’t be a teacher, but then she studied IT and became a web developer. With the help of her assistance dog Harry, Tanya built our website, but she won’t let us pay her: she won’t accept a thing.
We spend a lot of time on the phone answering questions about the puppies. If we can steer people to the website, it’ll help to cut down phone time, and free us up for other work.
Motivate your staff
Quite a number of businesses have been using the dogs for team-building. This suits us very well. The dogs get socialised, we get exposure, and businesses are finding it a great incentive and reward for their staff members.
One of the ways this happens is through corporate dog walks. We’ll go in and talk about our organisation, then the company picks ten lucky staff members to walk the puppies. Or we’ll have puppy showers: it’s like having a new baby and bringing it in to work to show off to your colleagues. It’s really positive for staff to see their organisation giving back to the community. That’s what makes the difference between a good organisation and a great organisation.
Some organisations let staff puppy-raise and bring the dog to work every day. Optus had a dog on the 21st floor in the North Sydney building. The dog met the General Manager once a week, the puppy-raiser, said she got to know everyone in the office as they all wanted to talk about the dog.
