
Meet service dog “Duke.” Duke is a seizure alert and autism service dog for Sasha Worley, and his mother, Crys Worley says “he's the best thing we ever took a chance on!” You see...Duke’s life didn’t start out so great. He was an abused rescue that the Worley family adopted in spite of numerous issues from his past.
The story starts with Sasha, who has many OCD behaviors that come along with his Autism. One of them includes his love for "Dogs with tall ears" (all breeds). He found Duke on Petfinder's website and read his profile...and it was love at first sight. His mother Crys finally broke down and said "yes" to possibly getting another dog - Duke was the family’s 3rd.
Duke was at a shelter and had been abused before someone picked him up from wandering on the streets. There were numerous scars on his legs and he was very timid and skittish...this was a dog who had seen much unhappiness in his life and very little...if any...love. The Worley’s ended up taking him home and working with him. They quickly learned how amazingly smart he was and knew he had serious potential! Crys Worley flew him from Alabama to California for service dog training with DogWish (www.dogwish.org).
The family had several weeks of family training sessions with Duke and his trainers when Duke’s 5 months of training was complete. Duke has been trained to sense Sasha’s "silent" seizures throughout the day. If Sasha were to have a grand mal seizure, Duke stays glued to his side. Duke is "trained" to sense the pending seizure and to constantly be on alert to break Sasha’s fall. Duke is also able to track Sasha if he were to wander off and become ill or get lost, and bring searchers to his aid. Through it all, the Worley family says that at the end of the day he's still a big puppy and plays and has fun like all other dogs, and even occasionally gets into mischief. :)
Duke is doing more than being Sasha’s protector and constant companion...as he has the opportunity to travel the United States with Sasha. They are changing hearts and minds about the German Shepherd Dog breed as well as erasing the stigma of adopting a dog from an animal shelter to use as a service animal. Sasha is a bit of a public figure in the autism community as well. There has been a feature length documentary that was made about him and the benefits of skateboarding to help those who suffer from autism that is playing in film festivals called “Heart Child.” Duke and Sasha travel together to different autism events as the mission of the Worley family is to help thousands of kids with autism.
The Worley family’s fondest wish is that their journey with Duke encourages more families to take an alternative route to investing in a service dog. They hope that people see the potential of shelter dogs to become service dogs….and that more will realize that the dog you saved just might turn around...and save you. ♥ ~Cheryl
To read more about Crys and Sasha Worley, please check out these links here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eva-glettner/skateboarding_b_2251604.html
http://espn.go.com/action/skateboarding/news/story?id=5301983
To learn more about the documentary featuring the Worley family’s struggles, check out this link:
http://offthewall.tv/search?x=0&y=o&q=heart+child
Please share the Worley's story to encourage families to adopt their next service dog! Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment