July 13, 2011
Vol 13 No 28
February 18, 2015
Learning to lend a helping paw Recipes
11
Cookie flavors inspire new desserts
Business
7
Feature Section
4
Community Toons
9
Movie
9
Food pantry receives grant
Photos courtesy Becky Flannagan ABOVE: Poet trains to be a service dog with the purpose of going on to help people with disabilities. BELOW: Faith Flannagan with Poet shortly after he began training to become a service dog.
Liberty High School student helps train future service dog By Brett Auten The journey of Poet has just begun, but he’s primed and prepared thanks to the efforts of a local high school student. In August of 2013, Faith Flannagan welcomed an eight week old golden retriever/black lab puppy into her Wentzville home. Nothing exciting or new there, but this pup was destined for a greater mission. Poet was selectively bred to be trained as an assistance dog for the Canine Companions for Independence, a nonprofit organization founded in 1975. Faith’s mother, Becky Flannagan, has been a supporter of Canine Companions since her days in college and is a former advanced trainer. “I wanted to do a service project in high school and wanted to give back to the community,” the Liberty High School sophomore said. “I was driven by the fact that (Poet) was going to help someone.” Canine Companions for Independence is a nonprofit organization that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing a partnership with highly trained assistance dogs. The dogs serve in four roles: assisting adults with physical disabilities by performing daily tasks; alerting hearing-impaired people to important sounds; enhancing independence for children and adults with physical, cognitive and developmental disabilities; and working with a professional in a visitation, education or health care setting. “CCI is the first, oldest, biggest service-dog organization in the world and is the leader in service dog training,” Becky said. “We consider ourselves extremely humbled to be part
of the organization. There are currently three multi-million dollar national studies with our dogs (Harvard, UC Berkeley, VA) to study not only the affect that service dogs have on the graduate, but also the cognition of the canines themselves.” Last week, Poet left Wentzville for Dublin, Ohio for advanced training for six months. Once there, Poet will learn to open doors, turn on and off light switches, pick up items as small as a paper clip and even pay for items at a store. But before he was ready to go to Ohio, Faith Flannagan worked with him to learn over 30 commands and socialize him in places like grocery stores, restaurants, sporting events, busy shopping malls, construction sites, pet stores and much more. “Some of the commands were basic but some were very hard,” Faith said. “From day one he had to go to the bathroom on the leash, which meant plenty of walks in the middle of the night up and down our neighborhood.” Faith was especially appreciative of both merchants and citizens of the area who allowed them to do their work. “We just want thank all of the places in the community that were willing to let Poet come into their shops,” Faith said. “We had a sign that said, ‘Please don’t touch,’ and people were very respectful of the training. I wasn’t expecting it.” The bond between a dog and it guardian goes without explanation. It is one of the most cherished relationships in our culture. Faith was able to put her feelings to the side and took a professional approach to it. See SERVICE DOG on page 2
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Favorite Valentine’s day activity
“The Duff”
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