Home News Local News Canine Companions for Independence fundraiser celebrates chain of love on North Fork

Canine Companions for Independence fundraiser celebrates chain of love on North Fork

SoutholdLOCAL photo by Dave Benthal.

Dogs bring unconditional love into countless lives — but when they’re trained to help individuals with disabilities, the gifts they provide are immeasurable.

Families in Riverhead and on the North Fork have experienced the power of a dog’s transforming love through Canine Companions for Independence.

According to its website, Canine Companions for Independence, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization that “enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly trained assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships.” The matches made between dogs and people, the site states, results in lives of “increased independence and loving companionship.”

Locally, the stories told by those who have either volunteered to train a dog or whose lives have blossomed due to the love of a Canine Companion, are heartfelt and life-altering. Canine Companions provides the dogs free of charge.

And this week, the community will come together for a fundraiser to benefit the organization on Thursday, July 31, at Martha Clara Vineyards. The “Wine and Noses” event will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets cost $60 and include a glass of wine, a choice of entree from either The Roaming Fork and North Fork Table food trucks, appetizers from Grace and Grit, and dessert from the North Fork Table.

In additions to presentations on Canine Companions and honoring the North Fork Animal Hospital in Southold, the event will include raffles, live music, and dancing.

Eileen Benthal, of Jamesport, said the lives of she and her family have been blessed by the “miracle” of their assistance dog, Taffy.

Taffy was placed with Benthal’s daughter, Johanna, over 10 years ago, when Taffy was two and Johanna, eight. Johanna, now 18, was diagnosed at three months old with a rare genetic neurological disease that causes tumors to grow in her brain.

Taffy, who is heading into retirement, will continue to live with the family as a pet dog; a successor Canine Companion for Johanna is sought.

“Over these years, Taffy has helped to increase Johanna’s independence by retrieving items for her, providing some motor stability, and helping to open doors when necessary. Taffy has been an official part of Johanna’s care plan by helping to mitigate the stress and pain of chronic headaches, bleeding in the brain and frequent brain surgeries — Johanna has had 90 surgeries in 17 years,” Benthal said. “Taffy comes to visit Johanna in the hospital, attends every doctor appointment and helps us motivate Johanna to rehabilitation following procedures.”

Taffy and her daughter have become a “very special team” over the years, as Johanna has traveled across the country in search of a cure for the rare disease, Benthal said. While Taffy is not trained as a seizure alert dog, she has frequently alerted Benthal to changes in Johanna’s neurological status, particularly at night, waking her to be sure that she is able to get to her daughter quickly.

“Taffy also serves as a social bridge for Johanna. Johanna loves to talk about her friend, Taffy,” Benthal said, with the pair featured on many news features.

Bethal’s daughter MaryAngela was also profoundly touched by the Canine Companions for Independence program, becoming a puppy raiser at the age of 10; she is currently raising her fifth puppy, Moats, for CC.

“MaryAngela is a very mature and thoughtful young woman, in large part because of the lessons she learned while training a dog and observing the impact they have on people with disabilities,” Benthal said. “She is a strong leader and trainer and the pups really respect her leadership abilities. It has been such a blessing to have both sides of the CC program, from puppy to graduate, in our own home.”

One of MaryAngela’s puppies was placed with a child with cerebral palsy, another with Dr. Jenn Cabral of North Fork Animal Hospital and the other two dogs, who did not pass the Canine Companions program, are Delta-certified therapy dogs in the Benthal home.

“My husband and I take them into rehab facilities, particularly focused on children and adults with brain injury,” she said. “Canine Companions is a great organization and we have a strong showing of support on the North Fork,” Benthal said. “Canine Companions is a community of caring people who bond together as people and canines to serve the needs of people with disabilities.”

Sonja Johanson, of Riverhead, teaches sciences at Riverhead High School and is the owner of the “Talk to the Paw” obedience school in Aquebogue. She’s raising her third assistance puppy, Atticus II.

Johanson brings the dogs to school with her and has seen, firsthand, how they transform lives.

“Seeing the reaction of the kids, and seeing how their perception has changed about the relationships between dogs and people, has been rewarding,” she said. “At first, some kids were afraid of the dog and would run away — and some would try to touch the puppy, and I’d have to explain that they couldn’t touch the dog because he was working.”

The dogs, Johanson added, provide a calming influence in the classroom. Raising the pups, she added, has helped her to grow personally. “I feel as though I’m doing something for the community, giving back,” she said. “Knowing I might be helping somebody by having a dog trained well enough to live their life better, is a really good feeling.’

Some asked how she could give up a puppy she had raised for months, Johanson said. “I try not to think of giving him up. It’s turning him in.”

There is a matriculation ceremony during which puppies are placed with the individual with whom they will live. “It’s very emotional,” Johanson said.

Anna Cila, a Riverhead resident whose husband Sam is an veteran of the Iraq War, where he lost his hand, said their family has come full circle with Canine Companions, raising a puppy themselves after having one placed in their home.

Cila said they raised Numa, a puppy who was placed with a little girl that needed him.

Over the almost-two years that the dog lived with them, Cila said they taught the pup basic commands. “Turning him in was very hard, but you know he’s going to someone that really needs the dog,” she said.

Numa, she said, was placed with a 12-year-old girl who has Down syndrome but can walk and talk and is “full of love,” Cila said.

Meanwhile, her husband was placed with a Canine Companions for Independence dog, Jillian, who was raised by a little girl with a brain tumor.

The Make-A-Wish program asked the little girl what she’d like for her wish, and she asked to raise a Canine Companions puppy. “We met that little girl and it made me feel like I needed to give something back,” Cila said. “If that little girl could do this, I can do it, too.”

In a chain of love, the little girl herself had first heard about the Canine Companions program from a neighbor who had one of the pups, and she trained her dog, paying it forward to the Cilas, who then also took the baton and raised a pup.

“It’s a really, really nice story,” Cila said. “To give something to someone else is such a selfless thing to do.”

Dee Dellaquila, owner of Dellaquila Beauty in Jamesport, is raising her eighth Canine Companions puppy; the dogs are Labradors or Lab/golden retrievers crosses.

Dellaquila and her husband Frank began working with the Canine Companions program when their children were young, eight and ten years old; today they are 25 and 23.

“We loved that our kids would be able to relate to children with disabilities. It’ was a nice thing to teach them, to do something you love and help someone else,” she said.

Currently, the Mattituck couple has five dogs, four of their own and one Canine Companions dog, Pixie. The Canine Companions program, she said, “is really wonderful. They’re all very giving people. It’s a gift to be able to give someone the joy of a dog, independence, love and companionship.” Her voice filling with tears, Dellaquila said, “I feel blessed to be able to do this.”

The dogs, she said, arrive by plane from Santa Rosa, CA, where Canine Companions of Independence has its own breeding program. “We get them at eight weeks old,” Dellaquila said, adding that the dogs generally stay in the homes until they are a year and a half old; families go to free training classes in Medford.

After they leave a home, the dogs graduate and then, some make it into the program for permanent placement with a family, while some might not, Dellaquila said. If the dog is not happy in the kennel, or working with trainers, they are released, and the families that raised them have first dibs in adopting them.

“They have to want to do this,” Dellaquila said. “That’s really heartwarming to know. The trainers want happy dogs.”

Dellaquila said her staff at the beauty salon get to know the puppies, who come with her to work. One dog was released and now lives with one of her staffers, Dellaquila said, while she and her husband have taken in a number of the releases, too.

The experience has been invaluable for her family, Dellaquila said. “We thought when we returned our first dog the kids would cry, but they said, ‘Good luck, Missy, we love you.’ It made me cry. They understood.”

The Canine Companions program creates lifelong bonds and friendships among those who’ve embarked on similar journeys, raising the puppies or welcoming them into their homes, Dellaquila said; volunteers help one another and share experiences, support, and advice.

“This is the greatest organization, with the greatest, most wonderful people,” Dellaquila said, tears in her voice. “It enhances my life. I feel so good giving someone the love of an animal. I’m a huge animal lover and to be able to do that for someone else makes me very happy.”

The pups also bring playful fun into their homes, Dellaquila said. “I enjoy all of it,” she said.

The need is great right now, Dellaquila added, for new puppy raisers. “They need a lot of service dogs, because so many service men and woman are coming home with disabilities,” she said.

For Laurel residents Tara and Richard Jernick, a CC assistance dog, Natina, has brought dedicated companionship to their son, Thomas, 17, who has cerebral palsy.

“He’s in a wheelchair and is non-verbal,” Tara Jernick said. The family has had Natina since 2008.

“My son does respond to her, even though he’s non-verbal,” she said. Natina is able to pick up her son’s juice cup when he drops it and she sleeps with him.

“Thomas is never alone,” she said. “He’s always got her in the room.”

And, Jernick added, the dog opens doors. When out in the community, she said, “Other kids didn’t just see another little boy in the wheelchair. They saw a little boy with a cool dog who picked up Easter eggs for him and put them in his basket. It’s a nice ice breaker.”

Natina, she said, is a sweet, loving dog, and everyone “adores her.”

Southold residents Kerri and Bob Scott have seven children, but still made room in their home and lives for Ranger, a Canine Companions assistance dog they just turned in.

The family was heartbroken when their dog, Luke, died two years ao. “It was such a heart-wrenching experience, to say good-bye to Luke,” Kerri Scott said. “I didn’t feel ready to bond with another animal.”

But, after a month or so, she decided that with the two youngest children still at home, they’d take on the project of raising a Canine Companions pup. “We would get all the joy of having a puppy in the house and it would be a service project for the girls,” she said. “It was ideal timing.”

Dogs, she said, live unconditionally, adding that “dog” spelled backwards is “God”.

Ranger touched their lives deeply, Scott said. “We’ve gotten a new understanding of the depth of how much these dogs have an impact on human beings. We always had a dog, but we really objectified the dog — like a live stuffed animal to be played with — but all of a sudden with this program, I saw a whole new level of interchange between humans and the dog. Dogs are attuned to emotion.”

When one of her children had a splinter and was crying, Scott said, Ranger laid his head in her lap, comforting her. “It’s as if they know, instinctually, what people need.”

At the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cutchogue, the Scotts brought Ranger over to June Behr, who was there with her grandson, Jared.

Jared has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and is also legally blind. His grandparents have raised him since his mother, EMT Heidi Behr, was tragically killed in an ambulance accident on Route 25 in Aquebogue nine years ago, when he was just a baby.

“He put his head right on the lap of this little boy and did not move,” Scott said. Jared, she said, was making sounds of pleasure to “verbalize his tremendous joy. You just saw that this is what this dog was made for. I told my girls, ‘See, this is what this dog is for. He’s not ours.’ Everyone has asked how we can give him back. But he constantly reminds us that he has this higher purpose, a role to play.”

In a separate interview, Behr described that same day at the parade. “It was such a good experience for Jared. The dog went right over to him and put his nose nose on Jared’s arm. Jared just brightened.”

The Behrs are now on the waiting list for a Canine Companions dog for Jared. “Jared loves animals. It makes a big difference, he just lights right up. He likes being outside, and being with animals, like a regular kid.”

And, in another testament to the chain of love Canine Companions has extended along the North Fork, Elliot and Fran Levine of East Marion met Johanna Benthal at the Greenport Farmers Market two years ago.

“My wife started talking to Eileen Benthal and her husband,” Elliot Levine said. “I said, ‘I’m not raising a dog from a puppy and giving it back. I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’ But then Johanna came up to me and said, ‘If you do this, you’re going to help somebody like me.’ I started to cry right there, in front of strangers, and said, ‘Okay, where do I sign up?'”

The couple raised Bravo, “a frisky dog with a real lively personality,” and when he was released from the program, after he was found to be “too excitable to be an assistance dog,” the Levines got him back. “I have no problem keeping this dog forever,” Levine said. “I’m going to grow old with him.”

Today, the Levines would like to raise another Canine Companions puppy.

At Thursday’s ceremony, the North Fork Animal Hospital will be spotlighted for all the financial assistance they give to Canine Companions dogs and those raising them.

Dr. Rob Pisciotta, who owns the practice, said he felt compelled to help. “These assistance dogs make such a big impact in people’s lives. I just feel it’s my way of helping the community,” he said. “We treat the dogs at no charge because they have such on amazing impact on lives.”

For tickets to Thursday’s fundraiser, click here. A limited number of discounted tickets, two tickets for $100, can be purchased at Dellaquilla Beauty in Jamesport, or by calling Benthal at 631-833-1897. All tickets must be purchased by Monday, July 28.

“Canine Companions for Independence is alive and well on the North Fork,” Benthal said. “People have seen us in the community and loved our dogs and our people. The North Fork has gone to the dogs, Canine Companions style, and we are all very grateful to be a part of this great mission of partnering exceptional dogs with exceptional people.”

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