When the Dogs with Wings Assistance Dog Society held its graduation ceremony on the weekend, it had a special announcement under its collar too.
They call them Tap Dogs. No, they don't dance but they are going to make it easier for the dog training school and agency to lick its long waiting list as clean as a dog's dinner bowl. It's using new technology to embark upon an effort to raise $1.5 million, a fundraising campaign that it calls Ditch the List.
If that one afternoon ceremony is any indication of how the rest of the campaign will go, Dogs with Wings is off to a tail-wagging start.
"They made $1,400 in ten minutes," said Doreen Slessor, the newly established executive director of the organization. "People go crazy for service dogs."
People do love those exceptional service dogs, she says, but up until now, they had to admire them from a safe distance: no touching allowed.
"The whole message is 'please don't pet a working service dog'. It's so hard. This is an opportunity that you can pat and tap one of our dogs. You get to actually pet a real live service dog and you have the handler's permission."
The Tap Dog project was also created to raise awareness of how these dogs work to help people in the community. She explained that some dogs are trained to help the blind or visually impaired as guide dogs. Others are trained to be ideal service dogs, helping people with physical disabilities to perform daily routines. There are autism dogs that are invaluable aides for children on the autism spectrum, companion dogs that make great friends for people with disabilities, and facility dogs that can partner with a health care or counselling agency to help dozens if not hundreds of people all at once.
One can immediately recognize the broad range of applications in which these dogs could be invaluable. Dogs with Wings only produces so many graduates each year, however, leaving many people on the waiting list for months or years.
"Most of the schools in Canada have a wait list for dogs. For autism dogs, every school in Canada has closed their list," she said, meaning that they are no longer accepting new requests. "Our list … we have 21 kids waiting for an autism dog. We had to close it. There's no way we can put new people on the list if we have 21 people waiting."
If the organization can raise its goal, then it can breed, raise and train 50 new service dogs at a cost of $30,000 each. The dogs are then leased to the clients at a cost of $1 to make them available to all, no matter their financial circumstances.
Tap dogs will make their appearances by invitation to a number of special events across the province. A tap dog will be on site at Seven Music Fest in St. Albert next month, and there are other public events lined up in Edmonton, Calgary and Grande Prairie where people can meet and pet one of these tap dogs, as well as 'tap' their donations via debit card, smart phone, or even smart watch too.
Axel, one of the recent graduates, will work as a facility dog stationed at the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre in Calgary for the next month to help kick off the initiative.
The technology consists of a contactless card reader that sits in a pocket of the Tap Dog's vest. It's linked to the Payd smartphone app via Bluetooth. It is preset for $10 donations but the donor can offer a different amount by request too.
People can learn more about the organization or booking a Tap Dog by contacting the agency via email at [email protected] or by calling 780-944-8011.
