Help Miley Gain Greater Independence

Meet Miley! Miley is 16 years old, funny, kindhearted, and especially wonderful with babies and toddlers. She loves animals, playing video games, listening to music, hip-hop dance, playing piano, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Stray Kids.

Miley lives with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), autism, significant anxiety, social anxiety, and selective mutism. She also faces physical challenges that can affect her mobility. As Miley approaches adulthood, one of our biggest goals is helping her become as independent as possible.

A specially trained service dog can help Miley navigate everyday life with greater confidence and independence. Her dog can be trained to provide anxiety support and grounding, deep-pressure support, recognize and interrupt concerning behaviors, get help when she needs assistance, and provide mobility-related assistance.

Miley has experienced firsthand how much a service dog can help through her current service dog, Maverick. Maverick was trained for Miley based on the needs she had when she was just 7 years old. Miley is now 16, and as she has grown, her needs have changed and increased. Maverick is also getting older and nearing retirement.

Her next service dog will be trained specifically for the young woman Miley is becoming and the challenges she faces now. Because raising and training a successor service dog takes several years, we need to begin preparing today.

We are working with 4 Paws for Ability to obtain Miley's next service dog and have a $23,000 fundraising goal. By the time her new partner is ready, Miley will likely be around 18 and beginning a whole new chapter of her life.

This dog isn't just for the teenager Miley is today. This dog will help her step into adulthood. 

Our hope is that her future service dog will give Miley greater independence, help her manage anxiety, support her mobility needs, and recognize when she needs help—even when communicating that need is difficult.

Every donation and share brings Miley one step closer to the service dog who will walk beside her into adulthood.

Thank you for helping Miley take that next step toward greater independence. 

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.