4 Paws for Evan

Evan was diagnosed with autism at 2 years and 2 months. Shortly after he was also diagnosed with Apraxia, a speech and language disorder. This makes it hard for him to communicate with new people. Like many children with autism he is prone to running off and is drawn to water. This combination could lead to very dangerous situations. As a single parent it can be very challenging for his mom to keep an eye on him at all times.

While visiting the University of Kentucky Evan’s family was introduced to 4 Paws for Ability service dogs in training and found out how they can help children with autism like Evan. Many of the services that a 4 Paws service dog could provide for Evan are things that no human, not even his mom can provide.

Tracking- Evan’s dog will be trained to track his individual sent. This means that if he were to ever get out of his mom’s sight his new furry friend would be able to find him before he could unintentionally put himself in danger. This will provide his mom with peace of mind and could one day save Evan's life.

Comforting- His service dog will also be trained in behavior disruptions, specific commands his mom can give his pup to help comfort him in overwhelming situations or disrupt unwanted behaviors. His mom has already seen this in work with the puppies in training at UK. When Evan became overwhelmed one of the pups did an “over” command providing him with enough comfort to stop him from a self soothing humming behavior that not even his mom can stop.

Alerting- Evan also has a peanut allergy that could become life threatening. Evan’s service dog will be trained to detect and alert to peanuts. His dog will be able to smell trace amounts of peanuts that no human would be able to detect.

And to think these are only a few of the tasks that Evan’s dog will be trained to do! Evan’s dog will also act as the perfect social lubricant to help him learn to interact with more people. This could drastically improve his speech and communication skills. His service dog will be a perfect best friend and help him gain independence in the future.

Evan’s family has joined forces with 4 Paws for Ability, a 501 c3 non-profit agency that specializes in training quality task-trained service dogs for children with disabilities. The family has committed to raise $14,000 of the $22,000 it takes to train and place a dog with Evan. But they have gone above and beyond this commitment and have also donated their time by helping to foster puppies for the organization. Evan, his mom and one of his two sisters are traditional fostering a puppy at home in Ohio. While his other sister, a student at the University of Kentucky, is currently fostering her second 4 Paws pup.

Join our campaign and help give Evan a new best friend!

To see photos of the foster pups and follow Evan's journey visit his Facebook page: 4 Paws 4 Evan - A Quest for an Autism Assistance Dog