(lively upbeat music) - Will you "Consider This," and these lovely ladies, and these darling little pets that we have here today?

Not exactly pets, they have a special purpose.

This is Donna Kosner and Shawna Knapp Collins, and they're with Paws Giving Independence.

And so, I mean, the name tells us kind of what it is, but there's so, so much more, Donna.

So, tell me how PGI got its start here.

- We actually are from the Chicago suburbs originally, and we moved down here 17 years ago, and we had volunteered with a similar program up in the Chicago area.

And when we moved down here as a family, we knew we were gonna miss volunteering with them.

So my daughter was a student at Bradley, and she had trained dogs on their campus.

So we went to them and we asked if, you know, possibly we could try to start a program here.

We thought we'd do a couple of dogs a year and kind of see how it went, and we're still here 17 years this month later, and we train service dogs for individuals with disabilities, and we train facility dogs, which the majority of 'em are in schools, but they also go into counseling centers, into rehab centers.

Most recently, we've done several courthouse dogs, one of them being in Peoria County at the State's Attorney's Office, and they go to work every day with a staff member, and they go home every night to be a family dog.

And they're also trained at skills and they train with the service dogs.

- Well, all right, so, they serve people who need some help, need some encouragement, need some, you know, I mean they might be disabled.

Or what about kids?

Because kids have a number of different kind of fears and things like that, and epileptic seizures and that kind of thing.

So they're trained also in those kinds of situations?

- Yeah, every program has its specialty.

For us, our main training is for wheelchair mobility, and then we also do medical response for things like seizures.

And we don't do the type of dog that predicts a seizure, we do what we call seizure response.

And we've done narcolepsy, we've done seizures, we've done POTS, different heart conditions, and the dog recognizes that the medical emergency is happening, and we work with the family to say, "What do you want the response to be?"

Sometimes it's to stay to the person during that seizure, so that they're not injured, but the majority want the dog to get help.

So they can either go find somebody else in the house or business where they're working to come and help them, they can hit a button.

We have one family who decided that they had a high school-age boy who was sleeping in their room, 'cause the night seizures can be very dangerous, and they wanted to make sure they knew if he had one.

They put a doorbell in the son's room, and when the seizure happens, the dog hits the doorbell, which rings in mom and dad's room, and then he stays with the child to make sure that they're not injured until help can come.

So we kind of work with them to decide what the best way to do that- - So each individual case, that's your problem-solving, for everybody individually?

- Exactly.

They all start with the same basic training, and then at about 15 months, they go to UFI for hip, elbow, and eye checks to make sure they're medically clear to continue working.

And then at that point between our trainers here and the trainers at Logan, they kind of say, "This dog is big enough to do mobility," because the height of a dog for mobility has to be right, or you don't have the right stability, or "This dog would be able to recognize a seizure."

And then they work on those specific skills.

Once they're at about 18 months, we look for a recipient who needs the skills of that dog, and then they match it, and then they fine-tune the training exactly to the needs of that person.

So that person comes over four months to our classes on Tuesday nights, and we work with them to make sure that the dog is alerting.

They do home visits with the dog, if it's a facility dog, the dog goes to school, we have a new facility dog going to school this week, to see if it's a match for their students.

So it's a process to get from, you know, point A to Z but at the end of it, they know that they've got the right dog for the situation- - And their method.

- And that they're both trained appropriately.

- Okay, so, look at them, they're just out of it.

(Shawna and Donna laughing) They're off duty right now.

So, Shawna, you've been doing this for three and a half years or so.

So, right now, you have Henry, and he's a furlough dog.

- Yes.

- So tell me what that exactly means.

- So around anywhere between eight to 10 months old, that's when they go into the Logan Correction Center, because that starts their intermediate and advanced training.

Before that, they're with the puppy raisers, anywhere from two to four months is usually when we get the puppies.

So it really depends on their development and their personality when they're ready to go into Logan Correction Center.

We wanna make sure that they're a confident puppy when they go in there.

So then, while they're at Logan Correction Center, they're there beginning around, let's say, eight to 10 months old, then about 18 months old is when they'll be coming out to be possibly matched with their recipient.

But, during that time, one week a month, they get to come out from prison and they go with our furlough families.

That could be like a family, like my husband and I, where it's just my husband and I, but we have three dogs, from a chihuahua to a middle-sized doodle, to a large Doberman.

- Oh.

- So at our house, they get exposed to all different sizes and temperaments of dogs, but it could be going to a family who has young children, or a family who has older children.

So it's really nice to have these dogs be exposed to different households.

But during that week, then you also take them out with you.

So, like, today, I'm taking him with me, tomorrow, we're gonna be going to see some friends for a holiday celebration, so he'll be coming with me.

He probably won't be invest, but it's a good opportunity for him to go and meet other people- - [Christine] And socialize.

- Socialize, experience as much as we can get them to be comfortable with, so that when they do come out, as we call it, they're bombproof.

They've seen it all, they've done it all, and so they're ready to become a service dog.

It's a really neat part of the program to be for, because you don't have to do it every month.

- [Christine] Right.

- This month was good, but maybe next month, I've got too many things going on.

- Mm-hmm.

- But maybe December is really good for me.

- [Christine] Mm-hmm.

- So you already set that up with our other trainers.

- All right, and so, this is all volunteer.

- [Donna] Mm-hmm.

- Where do you find the volunteers, or how do they come to you, or... - Well, when we get one, we try not to lose them.

- [Christine] (laughs) That makes sense.

- A lot of our trainers are from either Bradley University or Illinois State University.

And I always say, you know, I'm so amazed by, they're not really kids anymore, but the kids that we work with.

- Young adults, right.

- Young adults that we work with through both universities.

They come to training class with us, they have to get training before they can have the dogs on campus.

Once we decide who the dog's gonna be matched with, they work with the trainers, and many of them after they leave and go home to wherever it is after they graduate, they're still volunteering with us.

We've got one girl that's in North Carolina and helping us to kind of organize the furloughs, and a lot of them are from the Chicago area.

So it's just, we're very lucky, and then we have community members.

And, something, it's a great family project and it really is, it's very hard to have the dog and then give it away, but we're lucky that they understand that it is gonna go on to change a life.

And the reason for so many different places that the dogs go to is so that we can observe them in those settings.

And if we have a dog that's stressed by being in public, or just doesn't seem to enjoy what they're doing, we don't ever wanna force a dog to do it.

You can work through a lot of the behaviors, but about 30% of the dogs that start the program are actually adopted out as family pets, because it could be for a medical reason, motivation, they're happier being a family pet, and so, then we do that.

So by observing them, we're accredited by Assistant Dog International, and so we follow all their guidelines as far as the training and testing go.

- [Shawna] Which our fourth puppy is our family dog now.

(Donna chuckles) - Okay.

- She was not able to make it through the program.

- Career reassignment, they do not fail.

- Career reassignment.

She's just a nervous Nelly and public is not for her.

- [Christine] Okay.

- So, yeah, as the puppy raiser, we do get first choice if we want to adopt the puppy.

And so- - And this is the chihuahua?

- No, this is the doddle.

- No.

Okay.

- Yep.

And so, I think she pretty much chose us.

- [Christine] Okay, well, that happens sometime too.

- It does.

- All right.

So, where do you get the dogs, and the puppies, I mean you get little puppies, right?

How old do they have to be, or... - Yeah, typically, they're coming in at eight to 10 weeks.

If we're earmarking a dog to be a facility dog that doesn't take as many skills as a service dog, so we can take them up to about a year and a half.

And we have three different places that we get them from, we work with a lot of the area rescues and with P caps, they call us if they have a puppy that they think might be a good match for us and our trainer's temperament test, we have some local breeders who will donate dogs to us, because they like what we do, and then as I mentioned, we're accredited by Assistant Dogs International.

We don't breed our own dogs, because we're very into animal rescue, but there are larger programs that breed their own puppies, and so, we buy into a co-op.

And if they have too many puppies, more than they know they can train, then we're offered one of those puppies.

So you may see them flying on American Airlines from New Jersey, or the last one came from Utah, or Kansas City, and they fly to us, and then they begin their training with us.

- So you purchased the dogs then?

- Yes.

- All right.

- And that's part of the money that we raise.

For the co-op, we pay a certain amount and we're guaranteed three to five dogs through them a year.

We pay the rescues, obviously, if it's a breeder, they donate it to us.

- Okay, interesting.

And then, well, your family pet, the one who kind of failed.

- The mastiff.

- Yeah, okay.

- Mm-hmm.

- So you have the same vet for all of the dogs too, so, that, you know, that they're getting the proper care, or you can pick your own- - We have a series of vets- - Okay.

- That all know what our protocol is.

So we have three vets here in Peoria, and then we have a vet in Bloomington, and one in Lincoln.

Because the dogs that are at ISU, we don't want them to have to be driving in.

So they do discount the care for us, and they give us amazing care.

And, you know, some of them have been with us from the very beginning, and some of them are newer for us.

- And they recognize the value of the program.

- They do, and they've been outstanding with helping us to try to keep our cost down.

We wouldn't be able to do it if they didn't discount it.

You know how much one dog costs, so you can imagine 30.

(Donna laughs) - Exactly.

So how many dogs are in your program right now?

- I believe we have 27 right now, and 10 would be at Logan, and then the rest are in either at one of the campuses or with a community home.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And we kind of, as a dog graduates from Logan, another one goes in.

I believe we have two or three puppies coming within the next few weeks- - Yes.

- To start the training, 'cause we just graduated several over the summer.

So when one graduates, we know we can afford 25 to 30, and we don't ever wanna be in a position where the dog needs care we can't give it.

So we keep it between 25 and 30.

And as one graduates, a new puppy comes in to take its place.

- [Shawna] So we have about- - Wow.

- Five to seven puppies that are 10 months and younger currently in the program.

- So they really... That's like changing diapers.

You have to really start from the beginning.

- [Donna] The puppies, I don't find fun.

(Shawna chuckles) We're lucky to have people like Shawna.

(laughs) - [Christine] That like puppies.

All right.

All right, so, now I did understand that when they go with you someplace, the volunteers are not to leave 'em in the car- - No.

- Ever.

- No, no.

- That's like one of the very specific- - Yeah, absolutely not.

- Yeah.

- It's too much stress on the dog.

- Okay.

Well, in this heat this summer- - Oh, yeah.

- It would've been just awful.

- And even when it gets cold too.

- Right, okay.

- So, you know, those elements between the weather and the stress on it, it's not good for a surface dog.

- Okay.

So, now they're being very well behaved right now.

How do we get them to do something for us right now?

- Do you wanna do Lucy- - Sure.

- Or do you wanna... Treats.

(Donna laughs) - Oh, oh, yes.

So this is Lucy.

She heard the word.

- Lucy loves treats.

She's ready.

- Yeah.

- Would you like to do, demonstrate a couple with Lucy?

- Sure.

- You just kind of have this... Okay, there we go.

- Sit.

- Sit here.

- Good girl.

We also use hand signs, which is very helpful for different recipients.

Or, let's say you're at church, and you don't want them to say anything.

So what I just did was a hand signal for down, you know, it might be someone, a recipient, that doesn't have a very strong voice.

So being able to know those hand signals is something that's very important that I have found very helpful, especially when raising the puppies, because you don't wanna correct them verbally sometimes- - No, exactly.

- In public.

- [Christine] You don't wanna embarrass them.

Yeah, all right.

(Shawna chuckles) - They have about 30 to 50- - Down.

- Tasks that they learned.

And then again, that is fine-tuned.

- Good girl.

- Somebody might need help getting socks off- - Lucy?

- Or shoes off, or getting a jacket off.

- Look.

- Yes, very good.

- And so, we talked to the family about what does this dog need to do to make that person more independent?

- Touch.

Yes.

- Give the caregiver a little bit of care.

- Touch.

- [Shawna] Yes.

- So how old are your clients, I guess, or the people who will receive their service?

- [Shawna] Good girl.

- Our minimum age for a child, for a full service dog is they have to be 10, and they have to be able to pass the Public Access Test that the adults do- - Touch.

- To handle the dog in public.

Now sometimes, we might have a child that has down syndrome or autism that's not able to make all the corrections, or not have the dog run away.

So we have a facilitator-assisted dog.

So the lowest age for that is eight.

Typically, a good age to get them is junior high age, because the dog's gonna work to eight to 10 years, get them through high school, get them through college.

We don't have a top limit on how old they need to be.

For full service dog, they do have to be able to pass that Public Access Test.

- Touch.

- Now we have some adults- Good touch.

- That have Parkinson where they can't handle the dog alone, so their spouse is the handler of it.

So, again, we work with that, it's facilitator-assisted, and that dog can go anywhere.

The parent or the spouse go- - Good girl.

- With the dog to help them in handling it.

- Good girl.

- [Christine] But they also go to... Oh, look at this.

(Donna chuckles) They also go to classes, they go to the Tuesday evening classes.

- Yes.

Yeah, we train together one night a week, and then we, in order to be a family, a furlough family or a puppy raiser, those families come to us and get their hours of training in, pass the Public Access Test, then they're allowed to take the dogs out when they pass.

The average time is... Yeah, now she knows there's treats.

The average time is 18 months to two years of training- - Lucy?

- To get them all the way through it.

And like I said, this week we have, we're always excited- - Good girl.

- When one of our facility dogs is doing her first... - [Christine] Real job.

- She's over at the school- - Down.

- For the first week to see how it goes.

So then we can follow them on their Facebook page- - Stay.

- How it's doing.

And so, there's a lot, both in Dunlap and 150, we have several dogs, and then we have them throughout central Illinois, and we do have a couple up in Chicago.

- So in school situations, then you also have to work with the teachers to let them know what's going on and what's expected of them.

So how do you approach that?

- Yeah, we adopted to one family member, staff member, rather, and that staff member comes to our classes, and they get 24 hours of training, and then they pass the Public Access Test.

So the assistant principal at this school just passed her Public Access, which is why.

And so, she actually is working with us to say, "I am gonna do a PowerPoint with my teachers, I'm gonna do a PowerPoint with the kids that even though facility dogs can have more interaction than a service dog, we wanna make sure it's appropriate interaction."

And so, the dogs are trained to do a sit and a visit.

And even our service dogs are allowed to visit, if that's what the handler chooses.

Some say that it kind of bridges the gap between people not looking at their wheelchair but looking at the dog instead.

So it kind of determines what they do.

But it is really important whether it's a service dog that's gonna go to school with a child or facility dog, that the staff at the school is educated, that if that child has a dog in school, she's the handler.

You don't need to do anything to help her with it.

And if it's a facility dog, you know, they set up the parameters.

That person, that teacher, or this assistant principal, she can decide if the counselor wants to use the dog, or who else, what other teachers, if they wanna do a reading with the dog.

So we let each facility kind of set up what they plan to do with the dog once all the training is done.

- Hmm.

So the volunteer families, the puppies, how do you vet them to make sure that they are going to be good and kind and wonderful and helpful to raise these dogs?

- Yeah, that's why we don't just hand them to them, they have to come to us.

We do vet checks on recipients and our volunteers to make sure that all their dogs are up to date on shots, spayed and neutered, see if the vet has any concerns about anything that's gone on.

And then we wanna make sure that, you know, they're handling the dog appropriately, so they come to those Tuesday night classes, and they get at least 12 hours of training with us, and we watch how they interact with the dog, how the dog interacts with the family.

After a home visit, did the dog come back stressed or did it come back okay?

So, you know, during that time that we're working with them, you can see, and usually the people that are applying to do this wanna do it as a family project, and we really haven't had any problems with any of that.

- We also get certified as trainers and handlers in the public.

So those first 12 hours, we're learning how to handle the dog, because training a service dog is completely different than training a family dog.

- [Christine] Right.

- We can't get too excited with our praise, because then that creates that excitement with a dog.

- [Christine] I would fail.

- I know, it's very hard.

They've had to correct me.

(all chuckling) "Shawna, this is a service dog that we're training, not your family dog."

- Okay.

- "Okay, thank you, yes."

- [Christine] Got it, right.

- But we then go into like a grocery store, and we go through a certification test as the handler.

Once we are are certified, then we're able to take the dog out into public with the service vest.

But if you're not certified yet, you don't get to take the dog out in public as a service dog.

- So the certification takes place where, at the Tuesday night sessions, or is there something special?

- Well, they get their hours in, they have a log that they get hours in on.

Sometimes we'll do a Public Access.

This Sunday, we're gonna be over at Wheels O' Time, and we're going to be doing an outing with all the dogs going through.

Wheels O' Time is a great place, because they've got all the noises, all the sounds, the sights.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, we go out there every year, and so they can get training hours doing that, and introducing them to things that they probably won't see in public, but just getting used to that, not being afraid of it.

- A little bit of chaos.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And as trainers, it teaches us how to handle the dog as well.

How do we approach an object that might be a little scary?

- Right.

- We are taught to learn the dog's body language, are they apprehensive, are they slow, where is their tail, how are they standing?

- Wow.

- And so, we are taught that, so that when we do get out into public on our own, that we know what to watch for, and we are taught how to then work the dog through the situation, so that they're not fearful of it.

And once you work them through that, that creates more confidence in the dog.

- Right.

- And every dog, whether it's your personal dog or a service dog, we want them to be happy, confident, and ready to go.

- And then, how long did they get to stay on the job?

I mean, do you have to retire any of them?

- We do, and in our organization, when they retire, they stay with a person, if it's possible.

- Mm-hmm.

- That dog has been with them for eight to 10 years, they don't wanna give it up, we don't wanna give it up.

- Right.

- So because we've been doing this for 17 years, we're at the point right now where some of the dogs are retiring, and then they're getting a second, we call it, a successor dog from us.

We leave it up to their vet.

We work with our vets in training, depending on where they live, they've got vets that they work with.

And every year, they go to the vet for their shots and their monthly preventatives.

And the vet says "Yes, it's clear to work for another year," but our families know their dogs, and they know when they're starting to slow down.

And so, then they'll say to us, "I can see he's slowing down, maybe we've got another year, maybe we've got two years," but it helps us to plan ahead.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then, like I said, they stay with the family, and then they just get a second dog, which is tough to do, because the first dog is retiring and then, you know, "Here's the new puppy."

But it works out.

And if they can't keep it, then we find someone within the organization that'll do it.

And even with our career reassignment dogs, it may go to... The puppy raiser always has the first... Can I put her... (laughs) - Yeah.

- The puppy raiser.

- Lucy.

Lucy, come here.

Lucy, come here.

- I know she's got treats, and you love treats.

- Come here, sweet girl.

- The puppy raiser has the first chance to keep it, but we've got some dogs, we had one dog that liked chasing squirrels.

Well, you can't be leaning on someone while it chases squirrels.

- No.

- So we couldn't get it through it.

But it's an in-home companion for a gentleman who has MS, and it can still retrieve the phone and retrieve the remote control, and help him get up from the chairs and that type of thing, it just doesn't have public access.

- So that dog would understand sign language or both.

- Yes, both.

- Okay.

- Yeah, they're all trained with both, just because we don't know who they're gonna go to.

- Okay, all right.

Well, they're just so smart.

Now, so, Lucy is... Yes, yes.

(Donna laughing) She kind of failed being a specific service dog, she's more for people who are nervous and anxious.

- Yeah, she's called a facility dog.

- Okay.

- And our facility dogs do have to train for the two years- - Good girl.

- 18 months to two years.

They train with the service dogs, but then we've got dogs like Lucy who just love people a lot, and they don't wanna be sitting next to someone and just waiting to do something.

- Right.

- They love being with kids.

- And so, the facility dogs and the service dogs, she had to pass all the same tests as any service dog would.

We just felt that, you know, they're better working with kids, or working at the courthouse or whatever.

- So you take her out to also do presentations as well?

- She does, we do reading.

Sometimes schools will call us out and say- - Good girl.

- "Hey, we've got reading night, we wanna go do reading with the dogs," and we'll bring, you know, four or five dogs out there.

So she will go out to the school and let the kids read to her.

She likes the stomach pets better than anything, but... - Hello, furry being.

- And then sometimes schools or community groups want us to come in and tell about what we do and about what a service dog does.

- Mm-hmm.

- So she's one that will go out.

She actually lives with my daughter, I borrow her when I need to do it.

- [Christine] Okay.

- But, you know, she's just much happier doing that, she wasn't quite focused enough to do some of the things as a service dog we would've needed, as you can- - Did you ever think that you would know this much about dogs and dog behavior and... - No.

And we got started, when my kids were little, we volunteered for a humane society up in the Chicago area, and we used to do puppies and kittens, and so, that's what kinda gave us a love for the dogs and for knowing that there's a lot of great rescue dogs out there.

But, definitely, you know, we thought, like I said, if we do a few dogs a year, you know, we're doing something to make a difference.

- [Christine] Exactly.

- And then thanks to the support, Peoria is kind of a small town, and we're lucky to have the support of the community.

You know, we're still going 17 years later, so... (laughs) - So and you said again you have Wags 4 Mags and that's with Bradley University.

- That's the Bradley University.

And they've actually been with us for the whole 17 years, because my daughter and her best friend who started this with us, they were Bradley students at the time.

- Okay.

- And then nine years ago maybe, ISU reached out to us and they said, "You know, we heard about what you do, we'd like to do it."

So the ISU students, they come to Tuesday night classes, so they've been in class all day long, and then they drive 45 minutes each way to come with their dogs and do our- - [Christine] And where are the classes here?

- The Heartland Dog Training facility donates the space to us, they have for probably 12 years.

And they heard that we were looking to kind of buy a place, which obviously is a cost, and we did an event with them, and the owner at the time said, "Hey, I've got a place, you know, you guys are welcome to use it."

- Wonderful.

- They don't charge us rent, they let us use their equipment, they've been absolutely outstanding.

And it's because of things like that, that we're able to keep going- - Exactly.

- And don't have to worry about all the expenses.

- So your funding, you do some fundraisers?

- We do.

We actually have a Puppy Yoga coming up.

We've done in the- - [Christine] Puppy Yoga?

- Puppy Yoga, yes.

- Okay.

- That'll be in Bloomington.

We have done Puzzle Nights, we had Running With the Dogs, pre-COVID was very popular, but, really, we calculated all the expenses related to the dogs, and it costs us about $5,000 a dog for the two years that they're training.

- [Christine] Hmm.

- So we have to find a way to cover that.

Our annual budget's about 55,000 a year.

So we need to find a way to raise that.

You can sponsor a puppy, we've had families that wanna sponsor a year of their training, or two years of their training, then they get to name a dog.

So we've had businesses and individual families do that.

So the Sponsor a Dog has been very popular.

- Down.

- Uftring Automall has had us be their Subaru Share the Love event, we have local churches like First Federated that raise money for us, and have the kids raising treats, and all those kind of things, so... - That's awesome.

- We're just very fortunate to make it work.

- Community.

Community.

All right, so we find you on www, all one word, givingindependence.org.

- Yes.

- (clears throat) Right?

(clears throat) Excuse me.

I don't know what's going on here.

- [Donna] Allergies.

(chuckles) - But I wanna thank you, and, Henry, I'm sorry we didn't get too much to you... Oh, he heard his name.

(Donna and Shawna chuckling) - But you're a good boy.

- He's like, "Lucy's getting treats."

- Exactly.

Well, thanks for sharing this story of where you came from and all that you're doing- - Thank you for having us.

- And blessed we are to know about this organization.

I hope you've enjoyed this.

And until next time, be well.

Can you say goodbye, Lucy?

Henry, can you say goodbye?

- Can you wave?

- Can you shake?

- Paw.

- Can you shake?

- Paw.

Good boy.

- Good girl.

Yes.

- Good boy.

- All right.

Good job.

Yeah.

Did we say everything that was important?

- I think so.

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