Canine Companions For Independence
Having gone back to teaching, Bonnie spent evenings and weekends developing a vernacular for this new concept, settling on the name “service dog” for dogs helping people with mobility limitations and “participant” for those individuals getting a dog – to represent their involvement in the process of getting a dog. She finally settled on the name “Canine Companions for Independence” (CCI) to represent the independence this loving partner would make available to a person with disabilities. Behaviors that Kerry and others wanted the dog to perform, like “wait,” “pull,” “tug” and “better hurry” became new commands.
Continuing to experiment, Bonnie worked with local humane societies and animal shelters hoping to incorporate the rescuing of adult dogs with these new assistance dog functions. While an occasional dog was successful in its efforts, Bonnie found that with most of these dogs, some unknown problem behavior would appear at the most inopportune time causing the placement to fail. She returned to her original idea of breeding for the quality dog needed, but implemented a puppy-raising program to fill in the gap between puppyhood and a trained SERVICE dog placement.
In early 1981, with the basic program outline in place, and the service, hearing and social dog concepts functioning fairly well, Bonnie wrote and received her first grant, and was thrilled to move the program out of her home. CCI was moved into a small kitchen and one car garage on 7th street in Santa Rosa. At the time, Bonnie knew nothing about kennel permits, nor about employing staff. The first individuals hired were for minimum wage, and acted accordingly.
Read more about this topic: Bonnie Bergin
Famous quotes containing the words companions and/or independence:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)