K9s at the ‘Ville dogs change the lives of the people they serve

By Megan Deets

Well-trained service dogs provide opportunities for people with disabilities to go about their everyday lives without living in fear. K9’s at the ‘Ville gets to play a part in making that happen. 

K9s at the ‘Ville is a student organization at Cedarville University that assists the 4 Paws for Ability organization in Xenia, Ohio in training service dogs. For the past ten years, this partnership has provided a ministry opportunity for Cedarville students.

Junior Visual Communication Design major Abby LaFleur understands the impact that these service dogs have on people’s lives. 

“We get to show people that we’re sacrificing our college lives to train these dogs, and show them the love of Christ in that way,” LaFleur said.

About 20 of K9s’ 50 members are handlers. A few students are primary handlers, which means they are allowed to take the service dogs they’re training anywhere on campus. The majority of student handlers are secondary handlers. They either work with dogs that are only on campus part time, or they work with the primary handler’s dogs to give them short breaks. 

Despite the blessing that these dogs can be, people have misconceptions about service dogs. Most of the time, they haven’t been exposed to reliable information about them.

Many people believe that service dogs only assist people with obvious physical disabilities. Some places only allow public access to service dogs serving people with certain types of disabilities. This often happens because they don’t fully understand how much service dogs do to assist those with less-recognized disabilities. 

John Ferguson, a Vietnam War veteran who deals with heart disease, knows that people are curious about why he has a service dog. Some of them wondered what happened to him since he is a veteran. 

“The last thing I want anybody to do is feel sorry for me,” Ferguson said. 

Senior Biology major Kit Lason, K9s’ event coordinator, wants to teach people about what training service dogs is really like. When people see service dogs being trained, they often assume the trainers are only doing their work to get to be around dogs.

“It’s not just a fun outing a lot of the times,” Lason said. “It’s not easy, but it’s still amazing.”

Two recently graduated dogs, Rocket and Porter, are already having a big influence on the lives of their people. Shelby Neat and Ferguson first met Rocket and Porter last summer in a ten-day training class and quickly bonded with their dogs.

“They hit a home run with him for me,” Ferguson said. “I’m a somewhat laidback type of person, and [Porter’s] the same way.”

Ferguson is a Vietnam veteran who developed a heart disease due to the chemicals and drinking water that he was exposed to in Vietnam. His heart is currently only able to function at 25% of its normal capacity. Due to atrial fibrillation, he is at a high risk to lose consciousness, and he deals with mobility and balance issues.

Porter is trained to bark to alert someone if Ferguson passes out. If no one else is in the room, there is a yellow button in the house that Porter can press. This button is linked to three phone numbers that contact people who could come to help Ferguson.

Like Porter, Rocket faithfully serves his person, Shelby Neat. Neat has a condition called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. POTS causes her blood to pool when she lies down, leading to nausea and fatigue.

Rocket can perform deep pressure therapy to help relieve the blood pooling. He is also trained to bark as a call for help when Neat falls down from dizziness or losing consciousness. Because Neat has mobility issues with her joints, Rocket retrieves items for her or picks up items she dropped on the ground.

Neat also has a sleep disorder caused by disruption of the natural rhythm of her sleep. Her body keeps her up at hours of the night when most people are sleeping. When she can’t sleep, she sometimes does late night training sessions with Rocket. These sessions let Rocket practice his commands and provide Neat with something to do while she is awake.

“With my sleep disorder, I spend half my life alone. But the companionship has been really beneficial,” Neat said. “Living with chronic illness is isolating in and of itself.”

Senior Molecular Biology major Emma Dillon, K9s’ vice president and volunteer coordinator, is encouraged by the impact Rocket has on Neat’s life.

“He gives her that extra level of reliability and support,” Dillon said. “Even if you have disabilities, you don’t necessarily want your parents hanging around your whole life.”

Neat is thankful for the K9s student handlers, Anna Jender and Eva Tweeten, that worked hard to train Rocket well.

“He’s raised my comfort level in many different ways.” Neat said. “The impact that Anna and Eva had in the months at Cedarville were instrumental in his training.”

Through the K9s handlers’ work, people can experience parts of life that they may have no other way of experiencing. Dogs like Rocket and Porter change their lives and give them independence they could not have without them. 

Lason said, “It’s just so beautiful to see those [people] and those dogs and know that their lives are going to be forever impacted.”

Megan Deets is a freshman Professional Writing and Information Design student. Some of the things that she loves are new notebooks, fresh fruit and musicals.