Isaac's Fundraiser

Isaac's fundraiser was three days ago and I think it went well.  I still don't know how much money was raised.  They didn't give me the money at the fundraiser and I don't think they'd counted it yet, either.  I'm not sure if they plan to give the money to me directly or send it to Isaac's program.  Either is fine, but I'm curious to know how much was raised.  If I don't hear from the pastor in a few days, I will give her a call.

I ended up taking Isaac.  I wasn't sure I was going to because of his ankle but I really wanted to have him there.  I thought it would encourage people to donate more.  And he had not been limping for a few days by then, so I thought he was OK to go.

Before the fundraising lunch, we attended church.  The pews were very close together and Isaac did not want to go between them.  Instead, he wanted to sprawl out in the aisle.  I told him that was not going to work and that he needed to go between the pews.  Once he lay down, he had plenty of room, it was just crowded while he was standing up.

While we were waiting for the service to begin, an elderly woman in the pew in front of me turned around and commented, "I really admire you for doing that."

"For doing what?" I asked.  I wondered if she meant that she admired me for attending church but that didn't seem to make much sense.

"For taking care of those puppies," she said, nodding at Isaac.  Then I realized she thought I was a puppy raiser or maybe that I was training Isaac, as in training him for someone with a disability.  "He's in the training phase, isn't he?" she asked.

"No," I said.  "He's fully trained."  That's my standard answer when people ask if I am training him but I decided to give her a little more information.  "He is my service dog," I said.  She just looked confused.

So then the service started and Isaac sprawled out under my feet and partly under the pew in front of me and dozed until it was time to talk to the kids.  See, at this church, they do a Children's Time near the beginning of each service.  The kids are invited up to the front and the pastor talks to them for a few minutes about something before they are dismissed to go to Children's Church.  Only this day, Isaac and I were talking to them instead of the pastor.  So we went up to the front and I sat on a low stool and Isaac sat in front of me and the kids (about a dozen of them) sat in a semi-circle in front of us.

I asked the kids if any of them knew what a service dog was and a couple kids raised their hands.  I asked one girl what it was and she said they do things like guide blind people.  I said yes, exactly, and they help people with other disabilities, too, and gave a bunch of examples.  I also told them some of the tasks Isaac does for me and I made sure to point out that you can't always tell if someone has a disability just by looking at them.

I told them how long it takes to train a service dog and that usually they can tell if a dog is a service dog because it will usually be wearing a vest like Isaac's, although some service dogs don't wear vests and they don't have to.  I explained how Isaac knows he is working when he has on his vest and that he behaves differently when he is working than when he's not, kind of like they behave differently at school than when they are playing around at home or out in the back yard.

Then I asked one of the kids to read the patch on Isaac's vest, which says, "Please do not pet me, I'm working."  I asked them why they thought it was important not to pet a service dog when it was working and not to talk to the dog or otherwise distract it.  The kids were easily able to grasp the fact that a service dog needs to pay attention to its job.  I asked what they thought might happen if a service dog was guiding a blind person and the dog got distracted and they said well, the person might get hurt or fall down or run into something.  I also asked them what would happen if they were at school doing their math problems and someone came up to them and started petting them and talking to them.  Would they be able to concentrate on their work?  They laughed and said of course not.

I did allow them to pet Isaac at the end of our little talk and Isaac was in doggie heaven.  First he lay down, then he rolled onto his side, then he rolled onto his back and stretched out as long as possible, with a dozen kids all rubbing his belly at the same time.  His eyes were rolled back in his head and his tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth.  He was loving it.

The rest of the service went well and so did the lunch that followed.  They had a bunch of sandwich fixings, baked beans, pasta salad, potato chips, and a variety of homemade desserts.  I chatted with people about service dogs and about dogs in general during the meal.  People seemed to want to tell me about their pet dogs; many of them had pet labs.

I think it went well and I'm looking forward to hearing how much they collected.

If you weren't able to attend but would like to donate, please email me at poet_kelly at yahoo dot com.  Thanks!