Thank You To Animals For Autism & the Pepsi Pups!

A  “Thank You” to Lea Kaydus, Animals For Autism, Pepsi and Global Giving. 

From the amazing mommy at Speaking 4 Sam:

Today, I have an odd thank you to give out.  To those who have followed our story, you know that we were originally involved with a service dog organization that turned out to be a complete scam. We lost a lot of hard earned money, as well as generous donations from family, friends, and community. Pepsi and Global Giving became involved in this scam when they provided funding to the individual who was the “founder” of the so called organization…. funding that was supposed to help provide service dogs to children with autism(You can read more about our story in the previous blog entries). I, as well as the other families, have gone through a wide range of emotions. We were hurt, disappointed, confused, and angry. We tried to complain. We were told by Pepsi and Global Giving to just wait… everything is fine… and PLEASE be quiet. We took the proper channels to report what happened. We turned to media when all else failed. We hoped someone would hear us and do the right thing.

Someone did. However, it wasn’t the founder of Animals for Autism. It wasn’t Pepsi. It wasn’t Global Giving. It wasn’t people in positions of authority who could have done something….. it was someone not involved in the mess in any way. It was instead someone who could have easily turned the other way and went on with the great work she was doing already… It was the founder of a REAL service dog organization called 4 Paws for Ability. It was someone with a gentle heart, who loves what she is doing, and wanted to help children in need. She stepped up once to help my son by providing a fully funded, well trained service dog (which he will be receiving in October). She could have stopped there…. but she didn’t. She just recently stepped up once again to help another family involved in this mess.http://stinkerbaby.blogspot.com/2012/04/our-new-beginning-to-happy-ending.html#.T4OGIFHBI0o.facebook  Her kindness seems to know no boundaries. She stepped in and went beyond the “right” thing when others who made the mess to begin with wouldn’t. I cannot say enough good things about 4 Paws for Ability.

I have been there on site and seen their dogs. I have seen the training sessions and met the individuals working with the dogs. It is amazing. They are a nationally recognized organization, well respected, honest, and trustworthy. They have trained hundreds…plural…hundreds of service dogs. My son (and now another beautiful little boy from the AFA mess) is going to get a well trained service dog. A dog far better than anything he would have gotten from AFA. It will be trained in behavior disruption, tethering, and tracking (yes, that is right…. The dog is being trained to track my son if, God forbid, he ever wanders off). Wow, we are so excited for what the future holds.

So, believe it or not, I am glad that the founder of Animals for Autism did not follow through on the Siberian husky that she promised us. It could have been a disaster for my son. I have since learned that Siberian Huskies (although beautiful animals) make terrible service dogs and are not recommended for ANY child, let alone an unpredictable special needs child. I have learned that the founder of Animals for Autism lied about her experience, her trainers, her staff, and about the dogs themselves. She was never qualified to train any service dog and certainly not capable of training a Siberian Husky for such a service.  Thank you Animals for Autism for NOT giving my son a dog. (I would however like my money back).

Pepsi assured us that the founder was well qualified and told us they were honored to work with her.  Global Giving (who oversaw the grant program for Pepsi) told us we didn’t know what we were talking about. They said they had seen the dogs in training. Everything was fine. The funding continued despite the evidence. It is because of them that we took our stories public.

So, thank you Pepsi and Global Giving for NOT listening to us (although an apology would still be nice).  If they had listened to us and stopped their funding of this scam, if they had just admitted they were wrong, the families would have never turned to the media to have our stories heard. If we had never gone public with our stories,  4 Paws for Ability would have never heard about our situation, and so we would not be in the amazing spot we are now in.

So, in a strange way, I am glad for what happened, because in the end, my son is getting what he needs from a place very capable of providing it. However, I don’t want to forget the ones who started this whole thing to begin with. So as a way of saying thank you, I want to actually keep a promise my husband and I made to Animals for Autism’s founder way back last May when we made our first payment. We told her we would spread the word so that everyone would know about this little known organization and what they do….  I believe I am keeping that promise. I am trying to make sure EVERYONE does indeed know about Animals for Autism, their founder, their dogs, and EXACTLY what they do there. For good measure, I want to be sure  EVERYONE knows about the projects that Pepsi and Global Giving support as well…… You are welcome!