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“Our hearing dogs let a client know
when the phone rings or when a baby
cries,” says Deb David, community out-
reach manager. “Service dogs may pull a
lightweight manual wheel chair or turn
on lights. Seizure response dogs respond
to a client’s seizure by getting help or
providing stimulation. We do not train
dogs to predict seizures.”
The seizure assistance dogs are also
trained in behavior disruption for which
parents have commands to send the dog
to interact with the child who’s having
behavioral issues or loss of balance from
medications. It takes about $30,000 to
cover the costs of breeding and training
for the dogs, which are given to clients at
no cost.

4 PAWS FOR ABILITY
Located in Xenia, Ohio, 4 Paws for
Ability provides trained service dogs for
children with disabilities and veterans
who have lost the use of their limbs or
hearing while in active combat. Service
dogs include autism assistance dogs,
diabetic alert dogs, FASD (Fetal Alcohol
Spectrum Disorders) assistance dogs and
multipurpose assistance dogs.
“Parents of children with seizures use
the seizure assistance dog to help keep
their child safe,” says Kelly Camn, devel-
opment director of 4Paws. Camn says
the program is also having some success
in training dogs who work with children
who have frequent
seizures to pre-alert
just before a seizure
takes place.
Arlene Gorelick,
MPH, president of the
Epilepsy Foundation
of Michigan, warns
Arlene Gorelick families to be cautious
about claims that
dogs can be trained to
detect a seizure before it happens.
“There has never been a clinical trial
demonstrating the possibility, which
makes me wary of any claims or pro-
grams that offer to train or provide
seizure-predicting service animals,”
Gorelick says.
“Many families swear by their seizure-
response dogs that assist people with
epilepsy or other seizure disorders by
activating a life-alert system, finding
help, retrieving a phone or stimulating a
person during a seizure,” she says. “And
there are devices on the market that can
identify when a person is having a sei-
zure and call for help. The SmartWatch,
for example, is a wristwatch-like monitor
that detects shaking motion and sends a
warning signal to family members if the
client has a seizure in his sleep.”
Service dogs custom trained to meet
the special needs of their owners have
a huge impact on their owners’ lives.

Clinical social worker Ingrid Grossberg
often takes her certified therapy dog,
Midge, to Henry Ford West Bloomfield
Hospital to visit patients.

Helping their owners meet the daily
challenges of life with a disability pro-
vides greater mobility, independence and
personal safety.

THERAPY DOGS
Therapy dogs are also trained to help
people, but their jobs are very different
from service dogs. These dogs provide
psychological or physiological therapy
to individuals and are trained with their
handlers, who are usually their owners.
Therapy dogs are trained to allow
unfamiliar people to make physical
contact with them. They visit hospitals
schools, hospices, nursing homes and
similar places. Unlike service dogs, ther-
apy dogs are encouraged to socialize and
interact with people while on duty.
Therapy dogs must meet the stan-
dards set by a national organization in
order to be certified. They do not, how-
ever, have the same jobs or legal designa-
tion as service dogs and the owners of
these dogs don’t have the same rights to
be accompanied by these dogs in places
where pets are not permitted.
Ingrid Grossberg of West Bloomfield,
a clinical social worker, has frequently
taken her certified therapy dog, Midge, a
grand champion Portuguese water dog,
to Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital
to visit patients.
“Henry Ford requires that your dog be
trained and then certified by a national
organization before you can work as a
therapy team,” Grossberg says. “We were
certified by the national organization,
Alliance of Therapy Dogs. I applied to
be a volunteer and met with Henry Ford
Hospital’s head of the dog therapy pro-
gram who again evaluated us and gave
his approval. Midge and I had to get all
our vaccinations updated before we were
allowed to visit anyone. It’s always a fun,
rewarding and heartwarming experience
for the two of us and the patients and
staff.”

*

The future is
in your hands.

Meet Shlomo Anapolle of Edison, New Jersey. When it comes to

a love of Israel, few college students can match the Sabra passion

of this Yeshiva University junior. A pre-med, biology major with

plans to attend an Israeli medical school, Shlomo balances his time

between neo-natal diagnostic research, intensive shiurim and a

commitment to Israel advocacy.

Whether it’s planning lobbying missions to Washington, D.C.

with YUPAC or teaching English to teens in the Negev through

Counterpoint Israel, Shlomo brings to bear his leadership skills for

the sake of the Jewish people and homeland. He is proud to invite

Israeli diplomats to YU to help his peers contextualize current

events. Shlomo chose YU because, to him, Torah Umadda isn’t

merely the convergence of science and our mesorah¬at Yeshiva

University, it is the formula for a values-driven preparation for life.

This is the essence of Torah Umadda and what sets YU apart.

Picture yourself at YU. #NowhereButHere

www.yu.edu | 212.960.5277 | yuadmit@yu.edu

www.yu.edu/apply

January 7 • 2016

13