Meet Ebony the Service Dog

Dear Family and Friends,

It is with much excitement and anticipation that we introduce Ebony, Ryan's autism service dog. Many of you may wonder "what can a service dog do for a child?" and we would like to answer that question for you. But before we do, we want you to understand WHY Ryan needs his companion.

In January of 2006, he was officially diagnosed as autistic. While we were devastated with the diagnosis, we were well aware that Ryan will always be a special needs child as he had previously been diagnosed with epilepsy, developmental delay and mild cerebral palsy. Autism, though, is a terrible disease to live with. The daily struggles are exhausting, but at the same time, we are so very blessed to have Ryan in our family. He is a sweet, social, outgoing, lovable four year old boy. Some of Ryan's favorite things are to swing in the backyard, go for stroller and car rides, play peek-a-boo and be chased around the house. He also loves anything that spins, balls and musical toys. As hard as it is to raise a child with autism, we love Ryan so very much and thank God every day for the privilege of being his parents.

Autism Assistance K9s are full scale service dogs whose tasks include interrupting repetitive behaviors exhibited often by autistic children, offer safe physical control by both being an anchor for physical management of an autistic child to prevent wandering or rushing away during an emotional crisis, utilizes body weight to offer deep compression maneuvers which are common therapy, decrease the number of emotional meltdowns due to just the emotional support through offering the consistency to the child, are very vocal to let you know if your child is untethered from the dog or trying to get out of the room, stops the child from leaving, and if your child should still get lost they are avid trackers as well.

To bring Ebony home, we will make two trips to Leitchfield, Kentucky, home of Kentucky Working Canine Association-Rehabilitation & Rescue. The first trip will consist of three days of training starting with one to three hours of training just with Kim and the dog. After Kim's training, the dog will be introduced to Ryan and we will spend the rest of the time learning how to work with Ebony and Ryan together. After these three days, we will return home for forty-five to sixty days and then make a second trip to Kentucky. This trip will last one day where we will work out any kinks, "test out" and show the trainer our skills and work through any problems that have come up.

Please continue to follow us on this journey by going to Ryan's website...
http://www.caringbridge.org/ne/ryanm

With much love,
Travis and Kim (Lucht) McClintick, Class of 1991