Thursday, April 8, 2010

Kaleb and the Autistic twins

Check out this heartwarming story about Kaleb, a service dog helping out a family with young twin boys with autism.  Kelli Collins of the Georgia K9 Training Center worked with the McMillan family to train a dog to live with them. Unlike some other service dog training programs, Kaleb was trained in the house he would serve in, making him a part of the family from a very young age, in tune with the very individualized needs of these two boys.  As Collins explained to CNN, "You can create physical disability in a training environment, you can't create autism. There's so many varying degrees of autism. Each child is a little different. Even between your own children, they are very different. We can't create that in a sterile training environment."

One of the boys has a tendency to bolt away for no reason in public places.  Kaleb is trained to keep him close, and to find him if he does run away.  Watch this heartwarming video from CNN Health to see how Kaleb has touched the lives in the McMillan household:

1 comment:

  1. trying their best to make the most of a very difficult situation - faced with challenges around every corner, literally. Hopefully Caleb will make the parenting less stressful!!!

    ReplyDelete