This Monday is our annual Cyber Monday Online Auction with over 175 incredible items to bid on!
Join us online (www.facebook.com/padcentral) this Monday from 11am to 11pm to shop! Shopping is easy, simply post your bid with you email address as a comment on the photo! And 100% of proceeds benefit Phoenix Assistance Dogs of Central PA and are fully tax deductible!
We have incredible items from Burt’s Bees, Benebone, Starbucks, Troeg’s Brewery, and so much more!
If you’re local to Lancaster, dine with us on Wednesday, March 11th from 5pm – 9pm at Isaacs (4 Crosswinds Drive, Lititz, behind Pizza Hut!) and 25% of your bill to be donated to our program! Take out and gift cards purchased during that time also count! Don’t forget your voucher though – only diners with our voucher count!
LPN Stephanie Merrell sees first hand how assistance dogs benefit her patients:
Service dogs have played a vital role in creating independence in many of my patients. People without disabilities often take for granted small things, like being able to pick up something they’ve dropped. Without a service dogs assistance, this can be an insurmountable task for someone with a disability. Not only do they provide comfort and companionship, but they help instill confidence that their owner can achieve both large and small daily living tasks.
To download and print, right mouse click and go to file, print! The fliers are double sided and 2 per page, so invite a friend – please!
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What will your donation go towards within PAD? PAD is 100% volunteer based, meaning your donation goes directly towards our dogs in training and not a salary! Some of our costs are:
Last time we raised almost $400 at Isaacs! Let’s try to raise $500 this year!
PAD Davy visited our wonderful veterinarians today because we were concerned with one of his eyes. Our team was very disheartened to learn that sweet Davy has entropion in one of his eyes that requires surgery. Thankfully, the veterinarians are positive that with surgery, PAD Davy will be able to continue training with PAD and have no lasting affects! If you’d like to read about entropion, you can click <here.
PAD Davy’s medication prior to surgery (scheduled for 2/19/13), surgery itself, and post op medications will be approximately $1,500. Please consider making a small donation to help Davy get back to his training! You can donate by clicking below or email us (info[at]padcentral.org) if you’d like to donate directly to the veterinary clinic!
Please consider sharing this on your blog or facebook page!
Our incredible Online ONLY Auction begins at midnight tonight! For the complete information and rules go <here!
On our <Facebook fanpage we’ve announced one of the larger items each day, leading up to today! Incase you missed the announcements, the items are:
The possibility of Hurricane Sandy hitting our area has caused us to discuss emergency evacuations and over all safety.
Assistance Dogs are permitted to enter any shelter, but we still encourage our teams to be fully prepared by also knowing where pets are permitted if they need to evacuate and the local shelter does not understand the law regarding assistance dogs. If teams are denied access, they can call the National Red Cross 24 hour access number, 1-866-GET INFO.
A service dog is defined under the American’s With Disabilities Act as a guide dog, signal dog, or any other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. Assistance Dogs represent a specific group, different from pets or other animals such as therapy dogs.
The Red Cross specifically allows an individual with a disability the use of an assistance dog in its disaster or evacuation shelters; or we will make special arrangements to accommodate the individual, together with the assistance dog, within the facility or in another appropriate facility. In all such circumstances, the care and supervision of the service animal is the responsibility of the individual, and not that of Red Cross.
We recommend that partners put no less than one week of dog food in their fully fueled vehicle ahead of time, and packing the following:
A message from the director and co director:
We want to address the current issue with PAD Biscotti, as we’re sure if most of you haven’t heard yet, you will soon. Although it is extremely rare for PAD to ask for a dog to be returned from a team, due to concerns about Biscotti’s well being and continued training, we picked him up today. We’ve had many conversations to attempt resolve numerous safety issues over the past 5 weeks. Due to the fact that we were unable to get adequate cooperation, we finally had to intervene to ensure the dog’s health and safety. PAD Biscotti will be seen by our veterinarians, and when cleared for work we will re-evaluate his ability to continue in training. We hope that you all understand how devastating this is for everyone involved, especially Biscotti.
Sincerely,
Linzey Zoccola and Cory Grimm
Biscotti has been on medical leave since returning to PAD. During this leave, we’ve been giving him a lot of wonderful time to be a puppy, including food toys, snuggles in bed and long walks. His volunteer Puppy Trainers are going a great job at this important break.
Biscotti is learning to walk on a Gentle Leader, while still working on loose leash lessons on his collar, this will allow his trainers to handle him safely. Gentle Leaders are wonderful tools, and we will use them also with partners that need additional safety measures taken with their dogs.
<This weekend they took Biscotti on a long walk around a beautiful cemetery across the street from his Puppy Trainers home. He is learning quickly that the Gentle Leader is not a bad thing, and we are so proud of their work! Though Biscotti has returned to us with significant behavioral set backs surrounding fear, his trainers are working through them and we hope he will continue to make great progress and soon be back to the confident and social Labrador we know he is.
On Tuesday, Biscotti will undergo surgery to have a growth removed from his lip. So today, he had two very important visitors over for a play date Рhis littermates Rogue and Squeak!  Rogue and Squeak are not in training to be service dogs, but are wonderful loved pets.   The litter will be 8 months old on the 9th of May, and it was great to catch up while they romped in the 3/4 acre of fenced in grass at PAD.
We will be posting updates as he recovers, his health improves and we evaluation him for continued assistance dog training
<PAD Charming was donated to our program by his breeder, <B-C Labradoodle’s. He is a sweet, mellow puppy that likes nothing more than to lay at your feet chewing on a nylabone. In training, he is make suitable advancements on a regular basis, and will suit someone very well that desires or needs a laid back dog that is low shedding.
PAD Charming, and all of our dogs in training are neutered when our veterinarians at <Palmyra Animal Clinic say the puppy is ready. In this evaluation they take the puppies breed, size, health and behaviors into consideration.
For example, <PAD Rayhill was neutered at 16 weeks of age. This was decided because he had a higher than typical level of arousal. Rayhill is excelling in training and loves to work for that “click”!
PAD Charming will be neutered and while under he will also have a HomeAgain microchip implanted. Our dogs receive the highest level of medical care during this surgery not only because our veterinary clinic one of the best in central PA but also because we opt in for the most beneficial and safest options available. For instance, all of out puppies have there incisions done by laser, instead of the traditional cut. This decreases the healing time (very important for dogs in training!) as well as the risk of infection and the over all pain involved.
We neuter all of our dogs in training for many reasons. Behaviorally it is significantly documented and proven that dogs are less aggressive, less likely to roam or wander, and less likely to ever learn to mark.
We are very blessed to have access to such a wonderful vet clinic and have had great success with each of our puppies at Palmyra Animal Clinic. We appreciate your continued support and without it could not train assistance dogs to place with individuals with disabilities at no cost to them!
Please consider donating, <here!
April 12th 2012 PAD Milo went to the Animal Eye Specialty Clinic of Palm Beach for a eye clearance exam. When we arrived the receptionist handed me drops to put in his eyes; I was a bit nervous putting the drops in but Milo was not scared and did not move. The drops were used to enlarge the pupils for the exam; because of this, his eyes were more sensitive to the light. We had to wait about 30 minutes for the drops to take effect. In the general waiting area there was an African Grey parrot who Milo showed no intrest in even when the bird said “hello” and “sit!”. There were a good number of other dogs coming in and leaving; Milo wanted to say “HI” to them and their owners but once he understood this was not play time he settled under the bench.
I let him meet the staff, and he met a Doctor wearing a operation clothing, and a face mask–none of this scared Milo. After we went back to the exam room the Doctor came in monents later. Milo greeted him with puppy kisses of course! He did amazing during the eye exam, and wagged his tail the entire time!
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A big thank you to Shoshana Rappaport for this guest blog entry!
