Clean Run - January 2013 - 57

have given the autistic kids the time of day, but now they are coming up and asking questions. It is very empowering for our kids to be in that position. Jen: How many hours a week do you and the coaches volunteer? Kim: Our coaches are volunteers. We work 40 plus hours in our regular jobs and then I typically put in 20-30 hours with Agility Angels. Our coaches range in the number of hours that they put in. Jen: How do you pay your expenses? Kim: As you can imagine the $50 for four weeks paid by the parents doesn’t begin to cover our expenses. We rely on grants, donations, the tuition, and our own money to keep this program up and running. We have been very fortunate. Crown Matting donated the mats for the 6,400 square feet of agility space and the Toledo Mudhens (local baseball team) have a grant called Helping Hens that paid for the agility equipment. People have also donated equipment. Jen: Tell me about the dogs. Where do you get them? Kim: Our dogs are either existing agility dogs or dogs trained in agility. The dogs are also volunteers. We have free classes on Saturdays where someone off the street who wants their dog to be a trained volunteer can come and work with a coach to train their dog for agility. Their dog ﬁrst must meet the Therapy Dogs International requirements for a therapy dog. Our dogs must be able to do agility but also need to be able to deal with a very chaotic environment. If a child melts down and throws themselves on the ﬂoor, the other three dogs and kids continue to work. It’s not your average agility class for sure. I am very careful with the dogs and the kids. Just as I protect the kids, I also protect the dogs. This sport is prone to injury due to the nature of the sport and the repetition required to teach the skills. We jump the dogs low, but still there is a risk. We evaluate the dogs ﬁrst to see if they meet the requirements. At ﬁrst I thought the dogs needed to have perfect skills. I have since learned that they don’t as that doesn’t represent real life. It’s important to learn that when the dog makes a mistake, the student needs to work through it and not give up. When we ﬁrst started, a bar would drop and the kids thought it was the end of the world and would blame the dog. As they start to understand more and progress, they blame the dog less and they take more responsibility for the error and, therefore, learn how real life works. Sometimes mistakes happen and you go on. Jen: What limitations do you put on for age or breed of dog? Kim: Our typical dog starts when he is three. Any younger and he is not mature enough for the program. We have all different breeds in our program: terriers, sporting dogs, Greyhounds. The smallest dog is a Pomeranian and the largest is a Leonberger. I am careful to match our kids to the appropriate dog. We have kids who kick and push, and several who want to scream. We had one boy who would scream and his dog would leave. We spoke with him and said that if his dog chose to leave him, he would get a timeout. So the dog actually told us when the boy would get a timeout. The boy still has issues but has improved. A lot of the kids with anger issues have been turned away from other programs. They are used to being told they can’t come
January 13 | Clean Run 57

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Clean Run - January 2013

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