Janet Cobus, Development Director, and Bob Elsenpeter and his canine partner Herbie, came to say "thank you" to our club for a $250 contribution that we made to Can Do Canines to help purchase a $22,000 Ford transit van that was funded with the generosity of 12 Minnesota Rotary clubs, and to bring awareness about this locally based non-profit organization that serves people in MN, WISC, IA, ND and SD.

Can Do Canines is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for people with disabilities by creating mutually beneficial partnerships with specially trained dogs.  These individually trained dogs, often adopted from animal shelters or donated by select breeders, are provided to their partners free of charge, thanks to donations made by people and organizations like Rotary.  For more than 25 years, Can Do Canines has trained and placed nearly 500 dogs providing assistance with:  hearing, mobility, seizure, diabetes, or autism.    Janet and Bob helped us to understand the huge quality of life benefits...often not only for the recipient adult or child...but also for the other family members who receive some relief from high levels of anxiety, worry and dependence.

A key component in raising future assistance dogs is the Can Do Canines Prison Puppy Program.  It is currently operated in four Minnesota prisons and involves 40 - 50 dogs at a given time.  The puppies usually enter at around 18 weeks of age and are each assigned two handlers.  This is a special privilege for carefully selected inmates.  Inmates raise the puppy, teach obedience, and in some cases, even teach assistance dog skills, such as pulling open a door.    Inmates benefit from the relationships with the dogs, and gain skills, self confidence and self control that transfer to other areas of their life in an out of prison.  Prison officials say that it's not only the participating inmates that benefit-the entire prison environment seems to be positively transformed.

Overall, the dogs go through 7 or 8 levels of obedience training before being placed in a home.  They are certified by ADI.  If not for the generosity of donors, the average cost for a fully trained dog would be $25,000.    Currently 180 people are on a waiting list to receive an assistance dog.   Can Do Canines anticipates that they can provide matches for 46 people and dogs in 2015, and expect to increase that to 76 in 2017.  More donations are needed to make these wishes into reality.

How can we help?  Make a donation or pledge support for their annual fundraiser "Can Do Woofaroo" walk and festival on Saturday, Sept 12th in New Hope.  Check out 
http://can-do-canines.org/   Bob, Janet, Dana and Can-Do-Canine "Herbie" are pictured below.

(MANY THANKS to Cindy Carlson for providing this summary)