Community Involvement

 Being part of a service dog team allows Amanda to safely go out and live her life.

 

She has given back to the community by being a part of Relay for Life events, both as a team member and as a team captain. 

 

She has spread awareness through speaking engagements about seizure-response dogs and their value at Epilepsy York Region and Epilepsy Ontario meetings, and has spoken about epilepsy and service dogs at elementary schools and at seniors’ homes. 

 

Amanda and her family represent Epilepsy York Region at an international epilepsy expo in California every year, with last year being an exception due to the pandemic. Epilepsy Awareness Day At Disneyland is an annual expo attended by more than 5000 registered participants from around the world.  While at this conference Amanda's responsibilities include manning a booth where she answers questions and shares information with attendees.  She also attends speaker presentations on a variety of topics, and brings back current and innovative information to Epilepsy York Region to be shared with their members.

Amanda has also been an invited speaker at the Basic Income Symposium and has contributed to two books on the topic of Universal Basic Income.

 

Her service dog gives her the freedom to do all of these things without any worries.

                    

                                      Amanda speaking at the Basic Income Symposium in Hamilton.

With the EADDL Expo founders, Candy and Sofie Levy in Anaheim, California. (Missing from photo, Event Co- Founder, Brad Levy.)

                      Providing information to attendees of the EADDL Expo in California.

   Manning the booth at the Epilepsy Awareness Day at Disneyland Expo, a two day event.

Speaking about service dogs at an Epilepsy York Region Annual meeting.

                 Part of a Relay for Life team in Milton, ON, honouring her Aunt Nancy Robar.

Captain of a Relay for Life team in Newmarket, ON, in honour of her Aunt Loren-Lea P. Hodgson.

In the News

Back in mid October, it was quite an exciting time for our family, especially Amanda and Kira.  Snapd newspaper and Global Pet Foods put together the “Walking for Woofs” fundraiser for Cable’s training.

Now Snapd has assembled an album on their website where you can follow Cable’s journey.  Click below to follow along!

 https://newmarket.snapd.com/events/view/1338933

 

This month, Amanda was interviewed on the chapter she wrote for the anthology, “Broken Trust, Empowering Stories of Healing.” To hear about her talk about her life with epilepsy and her service dogs, highlight the following link and right click, then click on the "Go to" option:  

https://www.facebook.com/505133869/posts/10158031649663870/?d=n

 

As always, please share our links with friends and organizations that might be interested in helping support Amanda with Cable’s training!

GO FUND ME:  https://bit.ly/3fvYtxd

BLOG:  https://cablescalling.blogspot.com/

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/Cables-Calling-Born-to-be-a-Service-Dog-101555021631826/?view_public_for=101555021631826BLOG

Shaping the Behaviours and Skills of a Service Dog

 

As we settle in for longer periods of lockdown, now is a great time to read a little more about Amanda, Kira and Cable. 

 

In the photo below you will see Cable exploring, learning and growing alongside RuffSport dogs Pink, Diesel and Bracket. The dogs are being rewarded for different good behaviors, for example Pink for not barking, Cable for not visiting Diesel. Diesel and Bracket are distractions that the puppies must learn to ignore.  It’s important for Cable to learn that her attention must be focused strictly on her handler.

🐾

You can also see a video of Cable beginning to learn the emergency button task!  Baby steps.  First she learns to press the button.  Later she will learn to connect seeing a generalized seizure to the action of pressing the emergency button. Thanks again to Amanda’s brother, Xander Robar, for building the emergency button system for her.

As always, we encourage you to share our links with friends, family and organizations that might be interested in helping Amanda to raise the funds for the training of this invaluable service dog.

GO FUND ME:  https://bit.ly/3fvYtxd

BLOG:  https://cablescalling.blogspot.com/

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/Cables-Calling-Born-to-be-a-Service-Dog-101555021631826/?view_public_for=101555021631826BLOG

Happy New Year!

 As we reach the year’s end we are thrilled to announce that there have been 107 donations made towards Cable’s training since we opened our Go Fund Me in July of 2020. 

We are so confident in Heather McLeod, RuffSport's owner and lead professional trainer who is coaching Cable to learn the tasks she will need to become Amanda’s next seizure-response dog.

We will continue our fundraising campaign to keep Cable’s training going.  We hope you will continue to share our links and spread the word to encourage others to help us reach our goal of $36,000. 

In a world that has been rough and unforgiving in many ways this year, we have discovered the generosity, kindness and support of community, family and friends to help us through.

We’d like to leave you with some pictures of Cable and her friends at RuffSport  as well as some holiday photos you may not have seen.

Happy New Year from Cable’s family to yours!

GO FUND ME:  https://bit.ly/3fvYtxd

BLOG:  https://cablescalling.blogspot.com/

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/Cables-Calling-Born-to-be-a-Service-Dog-101555021631826/?view_public_for=101555021631826BLOG

             

 Happy New Year!  See you in 2021!

Playtime!

Cable has been enjoying learning at RuffSport for two months now and we have reached over 100 donors!!

 

We are thrilled that people have recently donated in memory of others, or on behalf of others for the holidays.  Your gifts are gratefully received!

 

Often we are asked, “Does a service-dog ever get time off?”  Of course!  All dogs need playtime.  The difference with a service-dog is that playtime shouldn’t just happen with anyone; it needs to happen with the handler.  This way the dog is always focused on their handler because they know that’s the person that is going to provide all the fun!

 

Kira first started at RuffSport because Amanda wanted her to have some off-work time, and she quickly became enthusiastic about dock diving.  Kira LOVES the water and was thrilled to discover Aqua Dogs. 

 

Cable loves tug toys and she is excited to learn to respond to new commands and be rewarded with a good game of tug! 

We would love you to share our posts and are happy to received donations!

Donate here: https://bit.ly/3fvYtxd

Visit our Facebook page at :

https://www.facebook.com/Cables-Calling-Born-to-be-a-Service-Dog-101555021631826/?view_public_for=101555021631826BLOG

Cable enjoying playtime with her yellow tug

toy.

Kira enjoying dock diving with Aqua Dogs.

Kira dock diving with Russ as commentator.

Fancy Footwork

Look at her go!  Cable is learning to climb the stairs and is exploring a wobble board!  She’s finding her feet and learning so much!

One step at a time...

...and down she comes!

It's important to be sure-footed... how do you balance on this?

A Girl's Got to Have her Beauty Treatment!

Cable has been working and playing hard at RuffSport under the professional guidance of Heather MacLeod.

We thought you might like to see what a day at the spa looks like! Thanks to Lynne Dumont and Mary Macneill-Beyea for giving Cable such a great grooming!

As Cable continues to prepare to take over service-dog duties once Kira retires, we appreciate all donations and support!

Donate here: https://bit.ly/3fvYtxd

Everything's just ducky!

Such a pretty girl.💗