Video

Jan 26, 2012

Facility Dogs – The Rodney Dangerfield Of The Canine Companions for Independence World

I’ve said for a long time that Facility Dogs are the Rodney Dangerfield of the Canine Companions for Independence world, and, in my experience, even most associated with CCI aren’t really aware of the wide variety of things they do.

I know I sure didn’t give them the respect they deserve initially, and that was largely because every time I heard them being brought up, it was as a means to an end, specifically in military hospitals, of educating patients about applying for service dogs. Now that’s certainly a great thing and very much a part of what they do, but they have a tremendous role to play all on their own, and there aren’t nearly enough of them out there.

That’s why I was so happy to see this great recent video with CCI Facility Dog Scully and his partner Elizabeth Penny – they are perhaps the best example I’ve seen of using the full range of a Facility Dog’s capabilities in a physical rehabilitation environment. Video is only 7 1/2 minutes, but if you don’t even have that much time, fast forward to 2:25 where Elizabeth explains and demonstrates what Scully does, and give me 5 minutes.

The video speaks for itself and says more than I ever could, but note the big things Elizabeth talks about having Scully help with:

  • articulation of speech – e.g., after strokes, aphasia, or brain injuries with the associated difficulty speaking
  • physical therapy – grooming, walking, feeding, teaching commands
  • education – patients who might benefit from a service dog get hands-on training and actually work with him
  • pure motivation – especially with pediatric patients, just to get them up and outta the bed (“Sometimes patients will say ‘I’ll come down for Scully, but I’m not coming down for therapy.’”)

You can see a whole list of rehabilitation goals Scully helps with at his WakeMed page:

  • Improve memory
  • Improve word retrieval
  • Improve sequencing skills
  • Improve socialization
  • Increase auditory comprehension
  • Increase verbal spontaneous speech
  • Increase motivation for participation
  • Increase attention
  • Improve use of upper extremities
  • Improve ability to interact with dog
  • Improve use of gestures in language
  • Improve articulation
  • Improve sitting balance
  • Improve gait training
  • Decrease situational depression

(By the way, Scully, as you some of you may have wondered about, was named for Vin Scully, the legendary Dodgers broadcaster. Very cool story about how that happened – I don’t know that Vin himself even knows there is a dog named after him.)

There are several CCI Facility Dogs involved in military settings, most notably Tommy at the Naval Medical Center San Diego Comprehensive Combat Casualty Care Center (C5); and Ascot and Bhadra at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center. Based on numerous conversations I’ve had over the years, though, I’m firmly convinced that the vast majority of occupational therapists have no idea what a Facility Dog can do, and if they did, they’d be pounding on CCI’s door to get one.

Elizabeth said it best: “I don’t know if I could go without having a dog in rehab. The impact that it has made on my patients, and my coworkers… I just don’t know that I could go without one.”

Jul 17, 2011

There’s A Media Bias, Just Not Necessarily The One You Think

Very good TEDx Talk video here from Jonathan Kuniholm, a retired Marine OIF veteran who lost his right arm to an IED and is very involved with advanced prosthetics work. (Can’t say I know Jonathan well, although I did actually have the pleasure of talking to him on the phone last year.)

“TEDxChapelHill – Jonathan Kuniholm – “We have the technology, right?”"

Maybe a little longer at 16+ minutes and with more detail than you care for unless you have an interest in prosthetics, but still great, nonetheless, and, if nothing else, I want you to key on one thing  – what he says at 3:30 in. It applies to many things (including service dogs, especially where veterans are involved), and you need to keep it mind with any story you see now.

The whole point of his talk is how the public’s perception of prosthetics is that they are much farther along technologically than is actually the case, and that the reason for that perception is this:

“This is a reflection, I believe, of a media bias. It’s not the bias that many of you might think – a left or right political bias. It’s, in fact, an affection the media has on our behalf for really good stories and really bad stories.”

He then goes on to talk about his appearance on 60 Minutes with an advanced prosthetic, and how that was portrayed vs the reality of the situation:

Jonathan Kuniholm on 60 Minutes

“In fact, here I am on 60 Minutes demonstrating some skin surface EMG sensing technology, and a hand that was supposed to come out last year and hasn’t come out yet. And even after I was very careful… I spent probably half the day telling 60 Minutes that the real story here was about the economics of providing arms, and what we got was a minute and a half of gee-whiz, thought-controlled arms. That’s something that’s very distressing to me.”

And I know why it’s distressing to him, too. Because of that story, people looking for a prosthetic like that come to him, and he has to be the “bad guy” and tell them they aren’t available yet.

While my situation is certainly not the same as Jonathan’s, I definitely know what it’s like to be the “bad guy”, because I’ve had to tell a number of people that something they’ve been led to believe by the media about service dogs isn’t exactly accurate, and it’s not a lotta fun.

I’m convinced that that feelgood factor – the unwillingness of the media many times to go beyond the superficial and do the hard research required to tell an accurate story – is perhaps the number one problem we have with service dogs. And the only way I know to fight it is for you to do what they (and most of the public) won’t -  go beyond the superficial, look deeper, do the hard research, get the real story.

Jul 4, 2011

Four Videos For July Fourth

Four videos in honor of the holiday and those who’ve paid the price so we can all enjoy it. Three I’ve posted before, the last is a new one from Thursday.

All four are Canine Companions for Independence veteran graduates, I’m proud to say I know all of these men personally, and, in each case, their injuries were sustained in the line of duty.

In addition, today is Sam Cila’s Alive Day – he was injured in an IED attack on July 4, 2005.

 

“Calvin Smith and Chesney”

 

“Sam Cila and Gillian”

 

“Jason Morgan and Napal”

 

“Jay Huston and Timo”

 

May 30, 2011

“I Can Help More People Than They Can Ever Hurt, Than They Can Ever Kill.”

ZD YouTube FLV Player

ZD YouTube FLV Player

“Wounded warrior comic mines hilarity from horror”

I really needed to see this story today.

Unlike many, I can’t really say I’ve lost close friends in combat, and, truthfully, I hope it stays that way. But, even so, seems like the older I get, the more the emotion of days like Memorial Day really gets to me. Maybe it’s just the sheer volume of things that get posted online now, or just getting older, or both, I don’t know.

All I know is seeing these two videos with Bobby Henline… couldn’t have come at a better time.  Oh, they’re emotional – if you don’t cry your way through a lot of them, you’re a lot stronger than me. But they’re also very uplifting – that’s the one word that comes to mind – and I felt much, much better after watching them.

I’d heard about Bobby before because of his association with Tempered Steel, but have never met him or heard his comedy routines before.  Someday I hope to meet him and say thanks.

May 26, 2011

“They Did It For YOU…They Would Do It Again If They Had To.”

ZD YouTube FLV Player

 

“Amputee veteran finds winning support in civilian world”

Great new video from The Today Show this morning about Team Red, White, and Blue and what they do.

As a reminder, my friend Sam Cila is riding with Team RWB during the upcoming Race Across America, the team portion of which starts June 18th in Oceanside, CA.

May 10, 2011

Training People Is Just As Important As Training Dogs

Something my friend Corey Hudson, Canine Companions for Independence CEO, said in this recent podcast interview with Marcie Davis from Working Like Dogs reminded me of another one of the most overlooked aspects associated with service dogs. Marcie, who has a Paws With A Cause service dog and is on the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners board, was talking about the number of new organizations that have popped up lately, especially those targeted at veterans, and her concerns about that, and Corey said:

“Training dogs is one thing, and there’s a lotta people who do that, that does take a great deal of expertise and a lot of experience, but training at the same time and teaching people with disabilities, or anybody… to bring those two entities together, takes quite unique individuals to be able to do that. They’re not counterintuitive, but they’re not necessarily the same thing, and you put the two together… you need to, I believe, see a lotta dogs and a lotta people, a lot of graduates, before you consider yourself a qualified person. My analogy is using a baseball analogy that you need to see a lotta pitches before you consider yourself somebody who’s going to be qualified enough to put a dog in somebody’s hands that’s gonna make them more independent as opposed to more dependent.”

Still haven’t seen anything that makes this point better than the above funny five minute video from last July where two hosts from a local radio station visited the CCI campus in Santa Rosa, CA as part of their “we do your job for a day” series.

I talked about this in a little more detail in “You Can Train The Dog, But Can You Train The Human?”, the post where I first linked that video. As I said there, even those of us closely associated with CCI tend to think of how great the trainers are with the dogs, and forget about how great they have to be with the humans. It’s not accidental that it takes 3 1/2 years to become a fully qualified trainer at CCI, and I’ve had people at CCI tell me they think it really takes five years for you to get to where you feel like you know what you’re doing.

Not to mention all the interaction that goes on when you have a group of experienced trainers like that in each of the five regional centers all working together, and the ultimate impact that has on the quality of  the service dog teams they turn out.

Critical concept to keep in mind when you’re looking for a service dog for yourself, or for someone else, or a place to support or be involved with.

May 8, 2011

“Dealers Help Wounded Vets”

“Dealers Help Wounded Vets”

Still catching up.

Followup video of Sam Cila accepting the National Automobile Dealers Charitable Foundation check for the Canine Companions for Independence veterans initiative.

Note particularly Sam’s description of what his service dog Gillian does for him – all specific physical stuff, in stark contrast to the inaccurate description in a national news magazine last year.