Founded in 2004, Working Animals Giving Service for Kids (W.A.G.S. 4 Kids) is dedicated to providing mobility, autism, & psychiatric service dogs for children throughout 35 counties of northeast and central Ohio utilizing an award-winning Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) accredited Cell Dog Training Program.

Wendy Nelson Crann, an animal trainer, and Ed Crann, a former special education teacher, developed the idea of training service animals to specifically meet the special needs of children in 2004, when there were no similar programs. It is an organization founded and built in northeast Ohio for the children in our own backyard. The needs of local children – both then and now – continue to drive the growth of the organization.

W.A.G.S. 4 Kids is driven by our belief in early intervention and dedicated to working with a family and child as early as there is a need and interest. Since our first placement in 2005, we continue to be the only 501(c)(3) organization in Ohio that exclusively provides service dogs for children up to the age of 18. We provide niche services to families with nowhere else to go in seeking an animal that is custom-suited to their child’s needs. Our focus on training our dogs to best assist each individual child’s needs ensures an immediate impact on their quality of life. Though our intention is to always enhance the wellness of a child, we often cannot quantify the effects our services have on the confidence, independence and empowerment of a child’s future. W.A.G.S. 4 Kids presents an opportunity for a child we see spending their life having things done to them and for them, to reach out physically, emotionally and engage with the world around them.

Our very first placement was with Myles from Strongsville, a four-year-old boy living with Cerebral Palsy and paralysis of his left side. Myles was non-verbal since birth and communicated with simple Sign Language. W.A.G.S. dog AJ was partnered with Myles, and in the final phases of AJ’s training trainers worked exclusively with hand signs so that Myles would be able to communicate with AJ using his right hand. After the placement, Myles began to speak. His first word was not “Mommy” or “Daddy,” as parents hope to hear. Rather, Myles’ first word was “Come,” because he wanted to talk to his Service Dog, AJ. Since that time, when posting photos of children we serve alongside the dogs we’ve placed with them, we use the phrase “let the magic begin” because that’s the reality of what these dogs can do and be in the lives of children with disabilities. Beyond Myles, we have time and again seen the sense of autonomy service dogs can restore.

In 2007, W.A.G.S. began its partnership with ODRC in our award-winning accredited apprenticeship Service Dog Training Program. Today the program is housed in two different facilities – Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio, and Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio. With this program, the men that become inmate trainers are guided by the professional training staff of W.A.G.S. 4 Kids and those men work hard to change their own lives, prepare to re-enter society and learn what it means to make the dreams of children possible.

We certainly understand the sticker shock when it comes to the high expense of providing service dogs. It’s a lot of money! Many can’t see how so much money could possibly pour into the care of one individual dog, but for any pet owners who have ever boarded their pet, for even a week, know that the cost is often similar to the expense of their own vacation. This is because there are so many staff members needed to care for the dog and provide enough enrichment for them to do well. (Quick Math = if you boarded your pet for 3 years, at an average boarding fee of $50 a day, it comes to $54,750. And this is just basic boarding without veterinary or supplies. It also does not include the additional expenses to transform a dog into a service dog.) Some of our dogs are housed at our prison programs, while others are in foster homes or personally fostered by a staff trainer. During the course of a dog’s training this often changes because it is healthy and productive for them to be in both environments, off and on. The dogs who are in foster homes or prison programs are cared for by volunteers, but still have many staff hours put into managing the fostering experience, with regular instruction and follow-ups with the volunteers. For the dogs fostered by dedicated inmates in our prison programs, we have staff who have weeks of travel expenses, due to the need to travel to the prisons for weekly group training sessions to instruct and oversee training and progress, as well as manage it administratively between trips. The travel expenses to the prisons often include mileage and gas expenses due to our long-distance relationships. When purchasing a puppy from a breeder we pay between $1,500 - $3,000 per pup (we aren’t purchasing run-of-the-mill dogs for this program because they need to have proven lines of health-tested dogs for generations). Other direct expenses per dog will include an average of 600 one-on-one hours to train a dog, an additional average of 300 one-on-one hours for grooming and driving that individual dog to field trips, travel expenses of field trips, supply runs, and veterinary visits. Then we have direct supplies (such as leashes, vests, collars, tags, microchips, booties, crates, toys, harnesses), veterinary procedures, health clearances, medications, and the food that goes into each individual dog, in addition to the trainer’s time during handler training when the recipient learns to work with their dog. Then there is the administrative staffing required for the behind-the-scenes work (excluding application reviews which end up paying for themselves). Training also continues because we offer free refresher training, at any time, to any recipient, as well as availability to reach a trainer 7 days a week, for the life of the dog. Insurance is also very expensive both for workers’ compensation of employees working in a high-risk related industry, commercial auto, and for the high liability we are exposed to in having so many dogs out in public settings throughout the State of Ohio. While these expenses are quite enough on their own, we also have the exact same expenses for dogs who never make it as service dogs, which are also included into the grand total.

Each service dog we train costs $35,000 per year. We ask that our recipients help "pay it forward" through a minimum financial commitment of $9,000 so our program can continue placing assistance dogs for years to come. W.A.G.S. 4 Kids is happy to cover the additional $26,000 to meet the $35,000 goal. We receive no government funding and are entirely dependent on the generosity of a very strong support network of our community and it’s leaders in order to fund the additional $26,000 per year per dog. Programs are funded entirely through in-kind donations, the support of grants, sponsorship, and proceeds from hosted events. We are hopeful this paints a small picture of why this industry is faced with such high fundraising goals across the world. There is quite a bit that goes into each working team.