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In the News! Here are just a few of the newspaper articles I've appeared in. I'm quite a popular girl! |
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PORT CLINTON NEWS HERALD - Oak Harbor - A stray dog from the Ottawa County Dog Pound has given a 13-year-old cerebral palsy victim a taste of freedom this holiday season.Lucy, a female chocolate Labrador, was rescued from the Ottawa County Dog Pound and trained as an assistance dog for the handicapped through the Assistance Dogs of America Education and Training Facility in Swanton. |
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In recent weeks, Lucy was introduced to her new owner, Vincent Dorsey of Canton. "She's doing great," said Vincent in a telephone interview from his home. "She's turning me over in bed, picks up the (TV) remote for me, and she takes my coat off." As a reward, his canine companion loves to be rubbed behind the ears. "And she loves her squeaky toys," Vincent said. Basically, Vincent is mobility impaired, his father, Russell Dorsey said. He is a quadriplegic and uses an electric wheelchair to get around. Vincent said he heard about the dog assistance program through a friend at his school, Jackson Middle School in Massillon. |
| "It's a very, very, happy ending," Ottawa County Dog Warden JoLynn Hetrick said. Lucy is the second stray dog to be rescued from the local pound for the program. There are various volunteers and organizations that rescue stray dogs from county dog pounds and find new homes for them. For example, Hetrick said she often hears from people interested in the Doberman and boxer breeds, to see if there are any suitable dogs they can adopt out on a private basis. But Assistance Dogs of America is looking for dogs who can be more than pets. The organization trains dogs with high intelligence and good behavior to help people in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana who have mobility or hearing disabilities. |  |
| BEACON JOURNAL - Akron - Lucy was a pound puppy with an uncertain future. But Vincent Dorsey changed that. And Lucy changed Vincent. The middle-schooler and his chocolate Labrador retriever are a team, the first in Jackson Local Schools. Vincent is one of the few adolescents to be paired with animal helpers in Northeast Ohio. For the 15-year-old who has cerebral palsy and a dislocated hip, Lucy is the arms that don't work, the legs that don't bend, the friend that's always there when other students peel out of school on a sunny day. "A teacher recently told me that Vincent even sits taller in his wheelchair," his mother, Celeste Dorsey, said. "Lucy's done wonders for him. She's the only one who doesn't like snow days." Vincent and Lucy appear to be a rare pair. While guide dogs for the blind have been around for 70 years, the training of dogs to assist the deaf and physically challenged - especially children - is more recent. No one keeps records on how many human-animal teams there are. |
| But one measure of the popular help-mates provided to both adults and children comes from Nicole McBride, head of the umbrella group Assistance Dogs International in Cochranville, Pa. She said that dogs placed by 60 organizations affiliated with her group rose 7 percent to 10,300 in 1999, the last year for which there are numbers. Some groups have sprung up especially to place dogs with children, she added. "I'm seeing an increase in parents wanting service dogs for their children," she said. "They want them to be independent."... |  |
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