Making Dreams Come True

Dear Friend,

Twenty years ago, I had a dream: to create an organization that would explore and develop mutually beneficial relationships between people and dogs. I incorporated that organization in 1987 and began looking for ways to start building those relationships.

Early on, I discovered that:

For more than 140,000 Minnesotans who could benefit from a hearing assistance dog, only one or two such dogs—trained by other organizations—were finding their way into Minnesota each year.

We began training Hearing Dogs and vowed to continue doing so until every person who needed one could have one. We are still pursuing this goal today.

Then, during the early years, three more important facts motivated me to expand our services:

• existing Service Dog training programs had up to five-year

  waiting lists

• a study published in the Journal of the American Medical

  Association concluded that a trained Service Dog could save

  people with disabilities up to $13,000 in annual expenses

• a person with multiple disabilities (who is both deaf and

  physically disabled) had nowhere to turn if they needed a

  Special Skills Dog (our name for a dog trained to be both a

  Hearing Dog and a Service Dog)

So, by 1995, we added the Service Dog and Special Skills Dog programs, changed our name to Can Do Canines and crafted a new mission statement.

Can Do Canines is a special place. We are not only the largest assistance dog organization in the area but we are the most innovative, providing special services that are otherwise unavailable.

We’ve accomplished so much! And we continue to pursue new dreams, developing new ways of helping people with special needs. Among these new initiatives:

• training dogs to assist people with uncontrolled diabetes

• a restorative justice project teaching prisoners to train

  shelter dogs as Service Dogs

• training Assistance Dogs for children with autism

As the founder, I’ve made Can Do Canines my life’s work. I live and breathe our mission. Giving homeless dogs a good home, and giving the gifts of independence, freedom and peace of mind to people with disabilities is important work. But we can’t do it alone. We need your help!

Raise a puppy to become an Assistance Dog; volunteer as a foster home provider, phone caller or office helper; serve on a committee; make a financial donation; or just help spread the word about Can Do Canines and our great work.

Dreams have come true for more than 270 people who have already received one of our Assistance Dogs. But many others are waiting and more applications arrive daily. It is only through contributions—just like yours—that our work can continue.

Please join us in this rewarding work.

Sincerely,

Al Peters
Executive Director

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