The touch of Arctic Paws

PALMER — At four months old, Smiley, a chocolate labradoodle with green eyes, is still a puppy. But in the meeting room at Turkey Red Tuesday, she exhibited the discipline of a more mature dog, laying patiently at Linwood Fiedler’s feet and looking with quiet attention at the people around her.

It’ll be more than a year before she’s ready to work with her client, a young woman from rural Alaska with an anxiety disorder who wants to go to college at University of Alaska Fairbanks and will need a little extra help to do it.

It’s a long road, but worth the investment, Fiedler said.

He and his wife, Kathi Fiedler, run Arctic Paws for Service, a Willow-based nonprofit that helps Alaskans with disabilities obtain service dogs.

The Fiedlers, who each have a background in social services and also participated in the Iditarod for 17 years, were inspired to create Arctic Paws a few years ago after hearing about Logan Erickson, a boy with autism from Unalakleet.

The nine-year-old, who hadn’t spoken since age two, had made a connection with a dog from musher Dee Dee Jonrowe’s team.

As Jonrowe was leaving for the airport, he began to speak: “Mr. Miyagi.”

It was the name of his new doggie friend. He repeated the name several times.

“I don’t know why, but there’s a special connection between dogs and people,” Linwood Fiedler said. “It’s like no other animal. Somehow, the human being and the dog connect in a way that we just don’t do with other animals, and they can bring out the best in us.”

When Kathi Fiedler heard about Erickson from musher Jonrowe, she contacted the boy’s family and began working with the Iditarod Trail Committee and other mushers to raise funds so the child could have his very own service dog.

Today, service dog Juke helps the boy sleep through the night and stay safe, and Arctic Paws brings more service dogs to Alaskans who need them.

Something the Fiedlers noticed right away while fundraising for the Ericksons’ service dog, was the high cost involved.

Linwood Fiedler recalls it was more than $50,000, and that most of it was in travel at various points in the dog’s approximately year-and-a-half training.

They figured some of that cost could be reduced by operating closer to home, and applied for non-profit status with the aim of bringing service dogs into the lives of disabled Alaskans, with a focus on children with autism for a lower overall price.

Arctic Paws raises funds for the purchase and training of dogs, identifies people in need, facilitates training for both dogs and their new humans, helps families do their own fundraising, and assists in transitioning newly-trained dogs into new homes – all for an overall cost of $13,000 per service animal.

“We’re small,” Fiedler said. “We’re not trying to be a big organization. We’re trying to place one or two dogs a year, and do a really good job of that.”

Smiley, who was named by the young woman who will eventually be her client, is Arctic Paws’ fourth service animal after two years of operating.

Smiley allowed herself to be petted by the people coming in for the monthly Kiwanis Club meeting at Turkey Red in Palmer. She sat quietly through the meeting where Linwood Fiedler gave a presentation about his non-profit, and received what he called a “generous” donation from the club for $1,000.

Carolyn Purser, president of the club’s Palmer chapter, called Arctic Paws for Service “a worthy cause.” The club raises funds for a variety of local service projects geared toward helping children and youth mainly through its two annual events, the Moose Poop Palooza in summer and Kiwanis Golf Tournament in the fall.

Smiley was slated to be dropped off later that day with a teacher in Big Lake who had volunteered to provide for her “puppy training:” socializing her, taking her out on regular occasions to shopping trips and other outings likely to be navigated in her life as a service dog, and providing positive-reinforcement behavioral training.

After about eight months, one-year-old Smiley will travel to California to spend four to six months with trainer Shera Butterworth, for an education tailored to help her become her future client’s service dog. In case the placement proves not to be a good fit, Fiedler said, Smiley will also learn to do things that could help people with limited mobility.

It’s often the training of the client with the dog that proves to be the most challenging, Fiedler said.

“It’s hard work,” he said. “I would say every parent (of an autistic child) we’ve worked with has broken down into tears at some point.” It takes about two weeks for the service dog and family to learn to work together and develop a bond, he said.

So far, Arctic Paws for Service has placed three dogs total, with two going to families with autistic children.

It took time for the two children with autism in one family to be trained to work with their dog at first, he said, and the dog wore a covering while the children learned how to pet the dog, and not pull its hair. To learn how to walk their service animal, the children initially worked with a mannequin before trying out their new skills on the real dog.

The difficulty of those first two weeks is something he tries to prepare families for, Fiedler said.

But once dog and family have forged a bond, the results are incredible.

“Probably the most important thing is watching children change and grow because of the animal,” Fiedler said. “When you have a child that’s been nonverbal almost all his life and not interacting with humans, and then it starts interacting with the dog and talking with the dog, and after a period of time, starts interacting and talking with people for the first time, that’s the goal of these service dogs: to help develop skills in the autistic child to relate to other human beings, and we found that the service dog can be a wonderful conduit for that.”

For more information about Arctic Paws for Service, or to donate, volunteer, or request a service animal for a person with a disability, contact Kathi Fiedler, at 907-232-2299, or go to www.arcticpawsforservice.org. For more information about Kiwanis Club in Palmer, go to www.facebook.com/KiwanisClubofPalmerAlaska.