Tuesday, June 01, 1999
Service dog key to independence
BY WALT SCHAEFER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Lord's work has gone to the dogs. Charmaine Powell and new canine companion Faith Noel Hope, a German shepherd, are becoming a team because of a breeder, a trainer and a weekly Bible group.
Cerebral palsy requires Ms. Powell to use a wheelchair, and she needs a dog for more than companionship.
“The dog picks up things because I can't — knives, forks, money, keys I've lost, even carryout food packages. They won't eat it,” Ms. Powell said. “She'll open the door and fetch the mail. She'll go shopping with me and pull me up hills and protect me and be my friend.”
HOW TO HELP
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Donations to “Friends of Charmaine” may be made at any Provident Bank branch. They are not tax deductible.
Any money that exceeds Charmaine Powell's needs will be earmarked for training and providing service dogs for others requiring wheelchairs.
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Leisha, a collie who died last year, was Ms. Powell's companion for five years. “I was completely devastated,” Ms. Powell said of finding the collie dead in her bedroom after returning from a shopping trip with a friend.
“I had Leisha since she was a puppy. I held her and I begged her to please wake up. I crawled in her cage with her, to be with my dog and I cried. She meant so much to me. I did not know how I could go on without her.”
But Ms. Powell persevered, scouring newspaper classified advertisements for another collie. When she found no collies, she looked to German shep herds and found a litter in Brown County. Breeders Penny and Dale Lawson gave her a dog instead of charging her $600.
Mrs. Lawson said Ms. Powell “told us about her situation and that she always had a dog around and did not feel safe without one. We decided the dog would be going to a good home and be worked.”
Ms. Powell, 33, lives in Mt. Auburn at a facility that provides apartments for the developmentally disabled.
She receives services from the Hamilton County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MRDD) and lives on about $500 a month.
Ms. Powell is an honors graduate of Condon High School, a since-closed special needs school. She is looking for work and said she receives minimal support from her family.
“I'm on my own.”
Cerebral palsy is a debilitat ing muscular and nervous system disorder, but often does not impair mental ability.
After getting and naming Faith, Ms. Powell started calling dog training centers but no one within her budget would help train the pup.
When Ms. Powell heard about a grant-writing seminar, she went to see if she could qualify for the $6,000 required to train Faith.
She met Mary Lou Rose, who was there to get grant-writing tips for a Montgomery historic preservation group.
Mrs. Rose, of Montgomery, also is a member of an interdenominational Bible group.
“I firmly believe that we all came together to do the Lord's work and help with this dog,” Mrs. Rose said. “This is the Lord's mission for us.
“Charmaine's last dog died. She needs a dog to be able to function independently. After meeting her, I asked our Bible group to pray for her special needs. They not only did that; they opened their purses and started giving me money. We are organizing fund-raisers. We have put together a nonprofit organization — ""Friends of Charmaine'' — to raise money (and) ... awareness for the need for these service dogs.”
Lindsey Stewart, owner of Top Notch Training Academy in West Chester, offered to train Faith Noel Hope for a reduced fee — $4,500 — the reason for the Bible study fund- raisers.
The first will be an invitation-only brunch and auction for 100 people in Montgomery later this month.
“It will take three to six months to train the dog,” Mr. Stewart said. “We start with obedience — very smooth but serious (training) — sit, stay, heel with the wheelchair, come when called, retrieve, pull without (excessive) force. Then she has to be good with kids, like to socialize with other dogs and can't be aggressive.”
Mrs. Rose and her friends, who live in Montgomery, Blue Ash, Kenwood and Sharonville, learned “service dogs are just as needed by wheelchair-bound people as dogs are needed for the visually and hearing-impaired. But no one is funding this need, and no one is getting the word out that these dogs provide a great service.”
Ms. Powell was anxious about life without a trained companion and “overwhelmed and shocked that these total strangers would even care. It is beyond words that they would step up and help me.”
She “named my dog Faith because I have renewed faith in people, and Hope because she can give me a future.”
And Noel? “Well, she's my guardian angel.”
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