Name:______Date Due:______
Directions:
1. For each paragraph write a gist word or phrase to help you summarize the information clearly.
2. Circle words you don’t know, then look the word up in a dictionary or online and write the definition by the word.
3. Answer the questions at the end of the article.
"Good boy!" Program pairs service dogs with health care system
DALLAS — Brian Boone, a soldier who lost part of his left leg while serving in Afghanistan, looks down at Brindle. The 2-year-old pooch is a Labrador-golden retriever mix — and a highly trained service dog.
“Good boy,” says Boone. Sarah Koch, Brindle’s trainer, suggests Boone use his silly voice. “I want you to get a little silly with your praise,” she says. Boone, 39, tries again. “Goooooood booooooooy,” he coos. Brindle looks up with doe eyes at his new master and seems quite pleased with himself.
Brindle and Boone are one of four human-dog teams united through a partnership between Canine Companions for Independence and Baylor Scott and White Health, one of the largest Texas health care companies. Corey Hudson, CEO of Canine Companions, believe this is the first partnership between a service dog organization and a health care system in the United States.
Many Patients Could Benefit
It costs $50,000 to train each service dog. Canine Companions, based in Santa Rosa, California, typically provides the service free of charge. In the new partnership, the health care company will find patients who could benefit from having a service dog. It will also cover the cost of training the dogs and their owners, and support them once they are home.
There’s a need for service dogs among the Baylor Scott and White Health patients, says Joel Allison, company CEO. “It ties in to our mission,” he says. “We think of it as part of our commitment to serve and meet the needs of all the patients that we serve.”
More than 25,000 Americans use service dogs, according to Assistance Dogs International. The animals are trained to help children and adults living with physical and mental disabilities. Some service dogs are able to sense oncoming seizures - abnormal activity in the brain - and protect their owners from falls. Others help the visually impaired. Dogs raised by Canine Companions are trained to pull wheelchairs, pick up keys from the floor and tug off clothes.
A Dog Is Good Medicine
The Baylor-Canine Companions partnership began this week by training four clients. They plan to expand to 60 clients next summer. The partners will build a training facility with six rooms and 24 kennels in Irving, Texas.
Boone is thrilled with his prescription for a dog. Lower-back pain makes it difficult for him to pick things up, and he hopes Brindle will save him “lots of wear and tear” on his back.
Recently, Boone was one of four Texans who were matched with a service dog. He was joined by Stacey Odom, 45, Melanie Knecht, 24, and 13-year-old Mackenzie Dunckelman. Odom is a special-education teacher who hopes to help autistic children with her service dog. Knecht is a music therapy intern.
Boone learned about Canine Companions through a friend at the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The program is designed for soldiers who have suffered burns or amputations of arms or legs. “That friend has the same injury as me,” he says. “He’s a below-the-knee amputee, and I saw how well-behaved and helpful his dog was.”
No Barking!
Boone was an explosives ordnance disposal officer when he was injured in 2011. “It’s like the Army bomb squad,” he says. Boone helped disarm improvised explosive devices, which are homemade bombs the enemy soldiers usually bury under roads.
It was an IED that destroyed his left leg and damaged nerves in both of his shoulders. Boone was unable to use his right arm for a year. Months of rehabilitation and physical therapy helped him regain some strength, and he hopes that working with Brindle will make him even stronger.
One recent morning, in a classroom at Baylor Health Center at Irving-Coppell, Brindle is joined by four other dogs. The fifth dog serves as a backup in case one of the other dogs does not work out. All of them sit silently in their kennels at the edge of the room.
A bark would mean instant failure. Only 40 percent of the dogs raised by Canine Companions graduate from the nine-month training program. The dogs that make it to Texas are the cream of the crop.
Witnessing Small Miracles
Stacey Odom is the first to volunteer for the exercise drill. The service dogs are taught at least 40 commands and the new students must learn the proper sequence of words. “Illia. Down. Don’t! Down. Good girl!” Odom says to Illia, a shiny black dog. “I just want to cuddle her,” Odom says. She fights the urge and instead asks Illia to obey a second command. Illia does and eagerly plants herself on the schoolteacher’s foot.
Odom and Boone have waited more than seven months to start training and they are the lucky ones. Canine Companions receives more than 100 applications a month, says Simi Balter, a program manager. “We get to witness small miracles,” Balter says. She recalls a child with learning difficulties who, having never spoken before, uttered his first word to a service dog.
Boone isn’t asking for a miracle. He says it’s not just physical tasks that Brindle will help him with, it’s the mental task of healing. “Dogs are very soothing,” he says. “Especially these calm dogs. Just being around them brings your spirit up. That’s hard to beat.”
Homework:
1. What is the main idea of this article?
2) A) What kinds of services do these dogs provide for their partners?
B) Cite evidence.
3) What are the service dogs not allowed to do?