Say hello to Courtney (8) & Cooper (5)!

Courtney is a former 24wk micro preemie that was given a 10 percent chance at survival weighing only 18 oz. at birth. She is now a healthy 8yr old but with many side effects of prematurity, including TBI (traumatic brain injury from bleeds in her brain), legally blind, autism, delays globally as far as cognitive, social, & fine motor (due to her vision restrictions). Her main concern for us overall is her anxiety & sensory processing disorder. She still requires me to lay in bed with her until she is asleep due to her anxiety for example. Meltdowns can easily last over an hour for her in some cases she will try to harm herself.

Cooper is our little curious wonder of joy! He was diagnosed with severe non verbal autism at the age of 3. Some well known characteristics of autism affect Cooper, the biggest being anxiety. He is also a wanderer & has ‘escaped’ many times from our home/backyard. Cooper needs an extreme amount of constant input due to his sensory processing disorder.

We are asking for your support to spread the word & donate if you can! My husband & I are in complete agreement that a service dog to serve both children mainly for emotional support would be a huge benefit to our family. This is something we have wanted for our children for a couple of years but the cost is out of our reach for that dream to come true. This service dog would also serve other purposes for our family & both of our childrens needs, but the emotional support would by far be the greatest gift as we would hope we could at least get out into public places more! We are pretty restricted to our home right now as most places they have a ‘time limit’ or can’t tolerate at all. Taking a service dog with us everywhere would be a tremendous help in coping with the anxiety they both have over loud, crowded, places.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story!

You can also mail a check or money order to:

W.A.G.S. 4 Kids

112 East Center Street

Berea, OH 44017

Please make a memo that your donation is in the name of Courtney & Cooper.