Mason is an amazing 7 year old boy with special needs that impacts his daily living. Mason has a dual diagnosis of Down Syndrome and Autism. His disabilities impact all aspects of his daily functioning, including his ability to physically move from one place to another, complete self-care tasks such as dressing, feeding, toileting, communication, and tolerance of challenging situations at home and in the community. He has been unable to tolerate some medically necessary procedures, such as calmly allowing a doctor to examine his ears or wearing equipment for a sleep study. He easily becomes overstimulated in busy environments, or understimulated when an adult is not actively entertaining him. His sense of danger is severely impaired. He may crawl or scoot into unsafe areas or touch something that is not safe. At other times, he is hyper vigilant
and anxious about stimuli that are not dangerous, which impedes his progress in therapy. He is very resistant to trying new things, including recommended medical equipment such as glasses or orthotics. He is learning to walk, but fatigues quickly. Mason participates in therapeutic horseback riding and loves riding his assigned horse and loves animals especially our family dog Bear the goldendoodle. Mason would benefit from having a forever companion that will be consistent in his life and we are excited to welcome anew family member to our family.

Training a service dog to meet our child’s requirements can be very costly. On average it costs between $40,000-60,000 to raise, train, and place a service dog at 4 Paws for Ability. While 4 Paws for Ability fundraises to help cover a significant portion of this cost, families are tasked with raising $20,000 of that amount or $23,000 if receiving a poodle, doodle or papillon. We hope that we can receive assistance from our beloved family and friends to help make our service dog dream a reality.