Studies show that less than 1% of the population of people with disabilities have service animals in their lives.
Thanks to the genorosity and hard work of family, friends, complete strangers and the community – Julian is joining that one percent!
THANK YOU doesn’t even begin to express how we feel about each of you and how you have helped make such a huge difference in Julian’s life.
Tomorrow, Julian and Clover will join the 1%
My name is Clover and I am a beautiful Red Golden Retriever. My color is a warm, soft Red like the feel of the sun on your face on a sunny spring day. My hair is very soft and long and if you hug me I am warm and soft. I am so excited to meet you. Clover, I guess a boy could be named Clover but I am a girl dog. My birthday is 3-8-2010. My brother Clyde, he graduated in the last class. I miss him so I am glad you will be here soon. I hope you like to pay fetch. I wish I could sit in here and talk to you all night but the Pink Girlz are kind of frantic. They think some man in a Pink Bathrobe is going to get their steak and eat it. I have no idea what they are talking about but they have never been upset before. So I will see you in a few. Have a Great Easter and if you meet the Easter Bunny say Hi for me. XOXO Clover
March madness – to some those words mean basketball and lots of it.
In Julian’s world March is more of the maddening wait for the arrival of his new best friend – his service dog.
For me (Julian’s mom) March is the passing of another mile marker on this journey to Ohio. The March class of 4 Paws service dogs ( aka March Mutts) got their matches over the week-end. Pictured above is one of the newly matched March Mutts – Vroom!
Remember there is no April class( that’s why we were called the April / May class) which means WE ARE NEXT! By the way, Julian’s class has chosen Spring Puppy Love as their class name.
We have been getting to know the other families who will be sharing this incredible day with us… Joseph from MO, Caleb from NY, Alex from MO and Zachary from ID. All boys! That should make for some rowdy evenings. 
To keep yourself from going mad you can visit the 4 Paws Dogs in Training page and see if you can guess Julian’s match. www.4pawsdogs.org
What’s next?
Approximately 10 days before we attend service dog school Julian will get an email letter from the dog introducing him (or her) self with a photo. I promise it will be posted here for all of you to share in this moment!
May 2nd we will leaving Iowa, driving to Ohio.
May 3rd at 10 AM we arrive at the 4 Paws training facility to meet the other families, dogs and trainers.
May 12th Julian’s 17 th birthday!
May 13th graduation from service dog school
May 14th drive back to Iowa
Some time shortly after May 14th we will host a reception for Julian & the dog to meet and greet all the awesome people in our community who helped make this possible.
This morning I started thinking if there was just one thing I could tell families of children with disabilities who are just starting out on the journey that we have been on for so long… what would that be?
Here is my answer:
I just want to offer one suggestion for parents of young children with disabilities or those with children newly diagnosed… So often reading topics in this parent group, I feel really OLD because my son with disabilities is 16, actually he will turn 17 in May!
Julian’s life changing brain injury happened when he was three months old; it’s been a long journey for us. He was only 7 when the most life changing thing happened to me, I was selected to be part of Partners in Policy Making in Texas. The first week-end of Partners training you meet an amazing mom, advocate and author Kathie Snow. That meeting changed my life and how I view everything about my son’s life….
Not every state offers Partners in Policy Making anymore (dang budget cuts!) but you can still read Kathie’s book “Disability is Natural: Revolutionary Common Sense for Raising Successful Children with Disabilities.” Kathie also has a website full of great articles at www.disabilityisnatural.com
I love my dog eared copy of her book, and often reread it to refresh and recharge myself. It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t read the book or embraced Kathie’s philosophy on life, but for me the big change was to stop apologizing to the world for having a child with a disability and instead accept and appreciate the miracle of life that Julian is. He is as much a human being as anyone else on this planet, and he has a right to a life as full and vibrant as he wants it to be. Kathie has a “so what” attitude about disabilities. It doesn’t matter what kind of disability or how many labels… our children are people first.
Let me give you two quotes from her book and then I will get off my soap box.
In her book Kathie says, “I spent the first three years of Benjamin’s life wondering when things would get back to normal. Then one day the sobering realization hit: this was normal for our family.”
One day her son Benjamin told her he didn’t want to go to therapy anymore, he just wanted to be a regular kid. Kathie says, “I heard him – finally- and on that day, we were set free. Contrary to the dire predictions of professionals, the sky didn’t fall when we said no to special ed preschool, and then no to therapy. In fact, just the opposite happened: Benjamin (and our family) thrived. Along the way, I regained the common sense I had lost in the jungle of professional jargon, expert opinions, conventional wisdom, and intrusive interventions. Our lives were once again our own. We were back to living normal, natural lives. We left clienthood behind and rejoined our community as citizens. Your child and your family can do the same. And you can begin dreaming for your child again.” (pg 11)
So…. this email is NOT an advertisement for Kathie’s book, just a small piece of advice from a parent who feels like an old hat in disability world to parents who might be at the start of a journey. Please don’t apologize to the world for having a child with special needs, take the “so what” approach and start expecting the world to treat your child like the amazing person that they are, start expecting your child will be included in everything just like everyone else because they are PEOPLE first. When we as a community start acting like our children with their service dogs are a normal every day part of the community we live in, the community will see this as the new normal…. because it is.
When we approached the school district about the SD going to school with Julian we assumed it would be the new normal and didn’t offer the possibility of no. Yes, our lawyer was at the IEP for other reasons, but my approach was still the same…
When we enrolled Julian in Tae Kwon Do, we didn’t ask the director if he was comfortable with a blind student… instead we acted like it’s perfectly normal for a blind kid to take martial arts and approached the director with the attitude of what can we do to make this a great experience for Julian AND the other participants. My list could go on and on and on, I just wish all parents could have the confidence to approach things like this is perfectly normal… because for us it is!
I have brown hair, you might have red hair or blonde hair. So what!? My child can’t see as well as yours might, so what?!!? That doesn’t take away the one thing we all have in common, the human experience. We are all people first.
We have started listing the auction items that will be used to fund Julian’s travel expenses to pick up the dog and attend 10 days training in April.
If you are interested, those items can be viewed by going to Ebay and doing an advanced search for user id: Kissingfrogs
It might be a well-known fact that April showers bring May flowers, but do you know what else April brings?? Ooodles of happiness!
For Julian, April 2011 will bring an end to months of anticipation and the start of a new friendship! We got the official word from 4 Paws last week that Julian has been scheduled for the April / May 2011 class to pick up his service dog! The exact start date has not been set yet, but we anticipate the training being the last week of April and the first week of May. We should be home from the 10 days training before Julian’s birthday on May 12th. This is awesome news, we thought we wouldn’t be placed in a class until July. Julian is giddy, happy with the news that he will have his dog by his birthday!
With the great news comes more work! We have to finish Julian’s video documentary that the dog trainers will use to help select the best possible match for Julian. If you have a touch of OCD like everyone else in our house and are wondering which dog will it be??? There is a special website that 4 PAws has that shows the dogs in training. Go to www.4pawsdogs.org click “in training” and you can see them. Karen, the director at 4 Paws says no one has ever successfully guessed their match. Julian and I have been studying the dogs and are making a game out of trying to guess. If you want to look and take your chances at the guessing game… there are a few hints that will help you. Julian is getting a tracking dog, and tethering dog, which means it will have to be a dog that is 50 pounds or larger. While the papillons are CUTE, they are too small. Chloe is out of the running just because she is a cat! Usually the dogs are some where around 2 years old at the time they are placed… so look at the birthday dates and compare that to April 2011.
The cutie below is Desi, a german shepard from the 4 Paws training group. No, I am not saying that’s my guess… just saying he is cute.
“Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit”
~Ronald Reagan
Self Determination is the essence found at the very core of the pursuit of freedom, it is the spark that starts the fire what burns from within. Nearly one year ago a group of friends and family gathered in a conference room to celebrate the life of Julian Herington and to set a blaze the spark that Julian already has burning within him to live a life of his own. With his own hands Julian stepped up to create his PATH (person centered plan), and watched in delight as his friends and family signed their commitment to join Julian’s team and to helping him reach those goals…
If you have read any of my previous posts on this blog you know we have been fund-raising all summer to help Julian reach one of his goals, to have a service dog. If you didn’t already know that, I will wait right here while you read them and get up to speed. lol…. okay now that you are back… let’s get to the good parts of the story.
Tuesday night I got a call from a young man who said he knew a mutual friend and heard about Julian Unleashed and has been following this blog. He said he would like to come by and make a donation. Okay, except no one will be home till Wednesday night… We agreed to meet Wednesday after his study session. Did I mention he is a college student? Yeah, he is.
Wednesday around 9:30 pm a knock at the door brings two college students to our home. After our shih-tuzs Morgan & Mischief gave their stamp of approval on their entry, I was introduced to Schuylar Oordt, who is a senior and plays football for the University of Northern Iowa.
Schuylar explained that each year the football team sells t-shirts and two of the seniors decide what to do with the proceeds. Schuylar had read my post after the auction and knew we had come up short on the $13,000 goal and wanted to donate enough of the t-shirt proceeds to finish off Julian’s fund-raising. Read that again, finish off Julian’s fund-raising!
And he did.
Schuylar also told me that he hopes to create a tradition where future seniors use the t-shirt money to do something good. He said he feels blessed that his college was paid for by athletic scholarships and he wanted to do something to give back.
Schuylar knows the important of a team and how it takes many for one to succeed. Thanks to his generosity… Julian is off the bench... Getting off the side lines is EXACTLY what self – determination is about and with the help of Schuylar and all our team players and awesome donors Julian and his SD (service dog) are headed to spring training camp… and ready to get on with the big game…. LIFE!!!!!!!!
More about the Panther with a big heart:
http://www.unipanthers.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/oordt_schuylar00.html
A number of people have emailed asking how the big event went on Saturday. I have updated both the golf page and the poker run page with pictures from the events. Please stop by those pages and share the joy with us.
How is the fundraising going? We are still climbing that mountain! We are close enough to see the top, but not there yet. To be exact we are only $2,775 away from the peak of fundraising mountain. If you have considering making a donation to the service dog fund, please do and put us over the top. There is a donor form attached at the top of this blog. Simply print the donor form and mail it to 4 Paws For Ability in Julian Herington’s honor.
October is the anniversary of the formation of Julian’s microboard, let’s see if we can help him put one more thing on his DONE list before that annual meeting.
Hi everyone,
We are getting very close to the big day… Sept 11, 2010
The golf tournament, benefit dinner and live auction are just 6 days away now.
People are asking what they can do to help. Here is a short list of what we still need to make this event a huge sucess for Julian and to knock out the fundraising goal to get his service dog.
We need:
Donations of desserts for the dinner
Home made pies for the auction
GOLFERS! Lots and Lots of Golfers…
Eaters.. come out to the dinner which starts at 5 pm
Shoppers… come out to the live auction which starts at 7 pm
