MSAR

K9: Jerry Springer
Operations: Seizure Detection
Breed: Springer Spaniel

Real life - Jerry Springer ….  Jerry !  Jerry!

Jerry's partner was having uncontrollable seizures that were affecting the life of the child and the families. If the seziures were not under control by age 5 - a risky surgery would be the option. However after contact with MSAR Jerry sprung into action and has transformed this little girls life and greatly assisted the family

  • Keanna was taking 6 pills a day and now is down to one a day.
  • She no longer looks like a zombie and is a regular little trouble maker.
    She now talks and interacts all the time, Keanna actually now helps her little sister which was never the case prior.
  • Keanna now can do more than one task at a time and also no longer has the anger and fits - why becasue she can now communicate.
  • If she does get upset - Jerry is quick to interrupt the behaviour. This balance has given her a trememdous amount of confidence and she now does things on her own and for herself.
  • Keanna use to have 25 - 40 seziures a month and now only 1 a month - and when she does Jerry is there to alert the family. - This gives a great sense of peace in the house and calm surrounding the care of Keanna.
  • Prior to Jerry, Keanna needed 24/7 care, sleeping, napping, eating - care all the time. Now Jerry and Keanna sleep together and the family is all in their own beds and have thier lives back.
  • Jerry is now the families third child and guardian of Keanna.

Jerry is a very special one of a kind dog that was found roaming around loose, he was unadoptable and no one wanted him. Then a shelter that we work with contacted our dog screener Chris (RCMP trainer / MSAR) and asked if we could use him. And Chris remembered that George was looking for a different type of dog - a little strange and needy for a very special study we were involved in - Jerry aced his work and the detection study and when the opportunity came up to match him with the family - we took it and it worked, worked much better than expected. Jerry was trained by Certified Master Dog Trainer George Leonard. We would also like to thank the sponsor Epilepsy and Seziure Association of Manitoba for purchasing Jerry's harness and K9 gear - very much appreciated.

The family has been struggling with this issue and had tried to get a seizure dog from another organization; however they raised funds and then the organziation disappeared. Master trainer George Leonard was contacted by multiple groups asking for assistance for this family. Luckly Jerry was just finishing his part in a detection study and was available to possibly assist - the two met and it was magic. Jerry first lived through the intial seizures and on the second day started to indicate to the mother the seizures - at first it was for a few minutes notice, then 5 minutes, then 10 minutes and after a week Jerry was indicating 1/2 hour notice. This notice gives the family enough time to give medication to help prevent the seizures now. The mother no longer needs to sleep in her daughters bed, staying awake nights watching over her child for the next big seizure - she now has peace of mind knowing that she is being watched over by Jerry.

Because this case is critical to life, MSAR has donated the dog to the family - we had no time to raise funds - so all costs and training time has been donated by George Leonard - to purchase such a dog would cost over $50,000.

MSAR would like to point out that Chris (friend of MSAR and RCMP K9 Trainer) found this gem in a shelter and immediatley contacted George to tell him "I have found a dog that will be amazing - I am sending him to you - you will do great things with him - believe me"

Jerry was running loose in a town of 300 people and know one knew who the owner was; he was picked up by the SPCA and taken to Yorkton - where they tried to place him twice but he was a chewer and high energy dog so he was returned and then they called Chris to evaluate - and the first thing Chris noticed was he needed (exercise) a task / job so Chris took him and sent him to George.

Immediately George noticed that this was one of those special dogs that come along that change lives. Our master trainer George Leonard then accessed and found him to be a great detection dog - put Jerry into training and used him for the cancer detection study and then switched him to his current task. George is very modest and says things like "it's the dog, I just simply hang onto the leash." However we know that George is in an elite class of trainers that make a huge difference to raise the skills and tasks of these service dogs that save and change many lives.

"the creator gave man the dog to help change his live and to improve his life" - here is a great example of this - God bless the dog and trainers that make this possible.