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Fundraising & Community DonationInformation on fundraising and community donation can be found here.
Tel. 425.389.5598 / 425.559.4491 |
Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals (ESA)
Puget Sound Doodles LLC has successfully placed many puppies in service and emotional support animal (ESA) positions. Our puppies have demonstrated the ability to work across group and individual settings and they can perform a broad range of tasks with training. Our current working dog group placements include: dental offices, elementary schools, and retirement homes. Our current working dog individual placements include: diabetic alert dog (the dog can recognize a hypoglycemic episode and alert the owner) , psychiatric service dogs (we have placed dogs in one on one support roles for individuals with anxiety, PTSD, depression, and agoraphobia), and autism service dog (the dogs are trained to accompany and support the owners at all times with the goal of decreasing anxiety and improving social interactions and relationships; our most common one on one placement is with individuals on the autism spectrum).
Puget Sound Doodles LLC has successfully placed many puppies in service and emotional support animal (ESA) positions. Our puppies have demonstrated the ability to work across group and individual settings and they can perform a broad range of tasks with training. Our current working dog group placements include: dental offices, elementary schools, and retirement homes. Our current working dog individual placements include: diabetic alert dog (the dog can recognize a hypoglycemic episode and alert the owner) , psychiatric service dogs (we have placed dogs in one on one support roles for individuals with anxiety, PTSD, depression, and agoraphobia), and autism service dog (the dogs are trained to accompany and support the owners at all times with the goal of decreasing anxiety and improving social interactions and relationships; our most common one on one placement is with individuals on the autism spectrum).
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Community Donation
Puget Sound Doodles LLC is committed to supporting diverse learners and community members with varied needs and for this reason donates some of their puppies to individuals seeking to add either a service animal or ESA to their life. If you, someone you know, or your organization is looking to adopt a puppy to train for service then we want to hear from you! Please complete the community donation nomination form (see hyperlink below) and tell us why you think you, the person you know, or your organization is a good fit for one of our community donation puppies. Please note that not all applications will be accepted. We are thankful and appreciative to all who apply and share their stories with us.
Community Donation Nomination Form
Puget Sound Doodles LLC is committed to supporting diverse learners and community members with varied needs and for this reason donates some of their puppies to individuals seeking to add either a service animal or ESA to their life. If you, someone you know, or your organization is looking to adopt a puppy to train for service then we want to hear from you! Please complete the community donation nomination form (see hyperlink below) and tell us why you think you, the person you know, or your organization is a good fit for one of our community donation puppies. Please note that not all applications will be accepted. We are thankful and appreciative to all who apply and share their stories with us.
Community Donation Nomination Form
Holy
Fundraise with Puget Sound Doodles LLC.
Puget Sound Doodles LLC is committed to supporting youth in our community through educational and enrichment programs to include extracurricular activities such as art, sports, robotics, and post secondary job training. We understand that for some schools fundraising can be an important part of their annual budget. It is for this reason Puget Sound Doodles LLC donates puppies to educational organizations seeking to fundraise for their students. If your organization is fundraising and would like to have a puppy or puppies donated please complete the fundraiser nomination form (see hyperlink below) and tell us about your event! Historically, organizations that have included us in their fundraisers report back that the puppies are often the most popular and highest yielding item at their events! Please note that not all applications will be accepted. We are thankful and appreciative to all who apply and share their fundraising stories with us.
Fundraiser Nomination Form
Organizations we have partnered with include:
Assumption -St. Bridget School located in Seattle, Wa.
Holy Trinity Catholic School located in El Dorado, Ca.
Briarwood Elementary School in Renton, WA.
Immaculate Conception Regional School in Mount Vernon, WA.
Marble Valley School in El Dorado, CA.
Holy Family Parish School located in Kirkland, WA.
Featured Stories
The Puget Sound Doodles LLC Story
By: Alexandra Lemelson M. Ed., owner/operator
My name is Alexandra Lemelson and I am the proud co owner and operator of Puget Sound Doodles LLC and Lemelson Family Farms. I am a former elementary special education teacher and Phd. candidate in the field. I am also the proud single parent to an amazing ten year old child with autism, Mathew. I am writing this narrative so that our families can better understand why I and my business partner, Kathy who is also my mother age 73, feel so strongly about supporting youth and diverse individuals with varied needs in our community. It was approximately eight years ago that I learned my son is a child with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and synesthesia (which let me tell you is pretty cool). I knew my son was unique and so the news and multiple diagnoses did not come as a surprise to me in the least. At the time, I was pursuing a degree through Harvard University’s Extension School and my passion was psychology. I envisioned myself working as a therapist one day but my son’s diagnoses changed all of that; I left the field of psychology and vigorously pursued the field of special education. Specifically, teacher licensure and a Phd in special education with an emphasis on autism and applied behavior analysis (ABA). My research interests included tiered interventions at the elementary level, non response to tiered academic interventions and the etiology of said non responsiveness, consistency across academic assessments when trying to determine non responsiveness, and data based decision making within academic settings. In hindsight, and after many years of adjustment and reflection, I realized that it was not just my son who was diagnosed with multiple conditions that day but rather it was our entire family as evidenced by my complete immersion in the field. Meaning, the autism and comorbid conditions we experienced did not function in a vacuum independent of the family members in our home but rather they impacted all of us. I envision it like throwing a pebble into a pond of calm water, the ripples reverberate out and soon the entire pond is rippling. Autism and the comorbid conditions were our pebble but in the case of my son our pond did not gently ripple; we experienced huge waves that made our world a more challenging but a better and amazing place! Following my sons diagnoses, I continued to work toward completion of my degree program/s but I also now had to embark on a journey of intensive in home and in clinic therapies for my son to include ABA, occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), speech therapy, and feeding therapy. I also had to attend endless doctors appointments with gastroenterologists, neurologists, geneticists, and of course I tried recreational therapies such as toddler soccer, music, and animal therapy. The schedule was vigorous, 40 hours per week, and my family suddenly had to adjust to an onslaught of strangers coming and going from our home multiple times a day. It was uncomfortable and even meal times were shared with therapists sitting at our dinning room table working on interventions as we ate. Our entire world changed but we plugged along and adjusted over time. I use the word “adjusted" because living this kind of lifestyle was, and still is, challenging and meeting the scheduling needs was, and still is, exhausting. In addition to that, tasks my family once considered simple and that we took for granted such as going to Costco or a playground suddenly became monumental events that required preplanning. We had to think about our entry and exit to all public places, the accommodations we could provide to help mitigate meltdowns (head phones, sunglasses, a comfort item etc.), and of course we always had an emergency escape plan which usually included a laminated card we could pass around to onlookers explaining that staring and whispering about us was not helping, and a runner who could quickly pick up my son and take him back to our car and calm him while the other person finalized our outing which usually meant just paying for our groceries. Grandma, my mother Kathy, always oversaw crowd control and paying for the groceries while I picked up my son and left. That being said, over the years that task became more challenging as he became bigger and stronger. Fast forward six years, it was only after my son became more verbal that I came to understand the world as my son lives it. My son is twice exceptional (meaning, he is both gifted and diverse). My son explained to me how sensory inputs such as light, sound, touch, smell, texture, and temperature made him feel. He shared with me that when he was in class things would lift right off the whiteboard and that he could rotate the images in his mind and view them three dimensionally. He also revealed to me that he maintains file cabinets in his mind that he sorts through and “ downloads" each night. He maintains images of our experiences inside his mental file cabinets and each night he sorts through and deletes the unnecessary files so they don’t overflow—needless to say his memory is amazing and he is a restless sleeper. What my family was figuring out was that just as we thought we could settle into a routine and catch our breath my son would throw us a curve ball and we would have to recalibrate I envision this to having a toolbox you think is filled with everything you need in order to complete a job. Then the job changes and you realize you don’t actually have the tools needed in order to complete the job. Now imagine the job changes almost daily. The silver lining to all of this is that we have also learned that some things are consistent like our dislike of strong odors and bland food. Hot sauce is amazing and it it okay to put it on top of almost anything edible and we can sit comfortably four feet apart while we eat and no we don’t need to eat the same food at every meal. Shoe laces, buttons, and zippers are totally unnecessary and who doesn’t want to wear sweats and slide on shoes everyday anyway. Tags are horrible and unwelcome here and long hair on boys it totally acceptable while we work on learning to get our hair cut. We have learned to live with the accommodations our family needs in order to be successful each day and one major accommodation was to relocate from the city to the country and to surround ourselves with animals. My son was two years old when we first tried using an emotional support animal (ESA). The outcome was amazing. To be continued...
By: Alexandra Lemelson M. Ed., owner/operator
My name is Alexandra Lemelson and I am the proud co owner and operator of Puget Sound Doodles LLC and Lemelson Family Farms. I am a former elementary special education teacher and Phd. candidate in the field. I am also the proud single parent to an amazing ten year old child with autism, Mathew. I am writing this narrative so that our families can better understand why I and my business partner, Kathy who is also my mother age 73, feel so strongly about supporting youth and diverse individuals with varied needs in our community. It was approximately eight years ago that I learned my son is a child with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and synesthesia (which let me tell you is pretty cool). I knew my son was unique and so the news and multiple diagnoses did not come as a surprise to me in the least. At the time, I was pursuing a degree through Harvard University’s Extension School and my passion was psychology. I envisioned myself working as a therapist one day but my son’s diagnoses changed all of that; I left the field of psychology and vigorously pursued the field of special education. Specifically, teacher licensure and a Phd in special education with an emphasis on autism and applied behavior analysis (ABA). My research interests included tiered interventions at the elementary level, non response to tiered academic interventions and the etiology of said non responsiveness, consistency across academic assessments when trying to determine non responsiveness, and data based decision making within academic settings. In hindsight, and after many years of adjustment and reflection, I realized that it was not just my son who was diagnosed with multiple conditions that day but rather it was our entire family as evidenced by my complete immersion in the field. Meaning, the autism and comorbid conditions we experienced did not function in a vacuum independent of the family members in our home but rather they impacted all of us. I envision it like throwing a pebble into a pond of calm water, the ripples reverberate out and soon the entire pond is rippling. Autism and the comorbid conditions were our pebble but in the case of my son our pond did not gently ripple; we experienced huge waves that made our world a more challenging but a better and amazing place! Following my sons diagnoses, I continued to work toward completion of my degree program/s but I also now had to embark on a journey of intensive in home and in clinic therapies for my son to include ABA, occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), speech therapy, and feeding therapy. I also had to attend endless doctors appointments with gastroenterologists, neurologists, geneticists, and of course I tried recreational therapies such as toddler soccer, music, and animal therapy. The schedule was vigorous, 40 hours per week, and my family suddenly had to adjust to an onslaught of strangers coming and going from our home multiple times a day. It was uncomfortable and even meal times were shared with therapists sitting at our dinning room table working on interventions as we ate. Our entire world changed but we plugged along and adjusted over time. I use the word “adjusted" because living this kind of lifestyle was, and still is, challenging and meeting the scheduling needs was, and still is, exhausting. In addition to that, tasks my family once considered simple and that we took for granted such as going to Costco or a playground suddenly became monumental events that required preplanning. We had to think about our entry and exit to all public places, the accommodations we could provide to help mitigate meltdowns (head phones, sunglasses, a comfort item etc.), and of course we always had an emergency escape plan which usually included a laminated card we could pass around to onlookers explaining that staring and whispering about us was not helping, and a runner who could quickly pick up my son and take him back to our car and calm him while the other person finalized our outing which usually meant just paying for our groceries. Grandma, my mother Kathy, always oversaw crowd control and paying for the groceries while I picked up my son and left. That being said, over the years that task became more challenging as he became bigger and stronger. Fast forward six years, it was only after my son became more verbal that I came to understand the world as my son lives it. My son is twice exceptional (meaning, he is both gifted and diverse). My son explained to me how sensory inputs such as light, sound, touch, smell, texture, and temperature made him feel. He shared with me that when he was in class things would lift right off the whiteboard and that he could rotate the images in his mind and view them three dimensionally. He also revealed to me that he maintains file cabinets in his mind that he sorts through and “ downloads" each night. He maintains images of our experiences inside his mental file cabinets and each night he sorts through and deletes the unnecessary files so they don’t overflow—needless to say his memory is amazing and he is a restless sleeper. What my family was figuring out was that just as we thought we could settle into a routine and catch our breath my son would throw us a curve ball and we would have to recalibrate I envision this to having a toolbox you think is filled with everything you need in order to complete a job. Then the job changes and you realize you don’t actually have the tools needed in order to complete the job. Now imagine the job changes almost daily. The silver lining to all of this is that we have also learned that some things are consistent like our dislike of strong odors and bland food. Hot sauce is amazing and it it okay to put it on top of almost anything edible and we can sit comfortably four feet apart while we eat and no we don’t need to eat the same food at every meal. Shoe laces, buttons, and zippers are totally unnecessary and who doesn’t want to wear sweats and slide on shoes everyday anyway. Tags are horrible and unwelcome here and long hair on boys it totally acceptable while we work on learning to get our hair cut. We have learned to live with the accommodations our family needs in order to be successful each day and one major accommodation was to relocate from the city to the country and to surround ourselves with animals. My son was two years old when we first tried using an emotional support animal (ESA). The outcome was amazing. To be continued...
Mathew and his ESA Langston.
Mathew and Mom graduating together!
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Mathew & Mom preparing for graduation.
Mom let Mathew walk under her robe across the stage at this graduation. He also sat under her chair during the ceremony.
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Chris D's story *Recipients name has been changed to insure privacy.
Chris D. contacted Puget Sound Doodles LLC. in 2019 seeking to adopt an emotional support animal (ESA). In speaking with Chris, he revealed to us that he was a veteran who struggled with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), heart difficulty, and limited mobility. Chris further suffered from dizzy spells when walking and he relied heavily on his cane. It was Chris's hope and dream to adopt a puppy that could serve both as an ESA and physical support to aid with his stabilization when he was experiencing dizzy spells. The size of the puppy as an adult was critically important to Chris because he was very tall and strong and the adult dog had to be able to support some of his weight during the dizzy spells. Chris thought about his puppy adoption for several months and when he was ready to proceed he reached back out to us and planned a trip to Seattle. What Chris didn't know was that we were also making plans; we love to plan surprises! Upon arrival to Seattle, the Puget Sound Doodles LLC. team greeted Chris with his new standard puppy. His puppy, who is now named Bear, was wearing a beautiful blue bow and Chris was told the puppy was a gift. Since completing the adoption, we have had the privilege to stay in close contact with Chris and we have become close family friends. It is with a heavy heart that we will share that Chris has been hospitalized several times over the course of the years but Bear has always been by his side. Chris and Bear are the best of friends and we are blessed to have helped forge this amazing bond and friendship between Chris and Bear.
Chris D. contacted Puget Sound Doodles LLC. in 2019 seeking to adopt an emotional support animal (ESA). In speaking with Chris, he revealed to us that he was a veteran who struggled with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), heart difficulty, and limited mobility. Chris further suffered from dizzy spells when walking and he relied heavily on his cane. It was Chris's hope and dream to adopt a puppy that could serve both as an ESA and physical support to aid with his stabilization when he was experiencing dizzy spells. The size of the puppy as an adult was critically important to Chris because he was very tall and strong and the adult dog had to be able to support some of his weight during the dizzy spells. Chris thought about his puppy adoption for several months and when he was ready to proceed he reached back out to us and planned a trip to Seattle. What Chris didn't know was that we were also making plans; we love to plan surprises! Upon arrival to Seattle, the Puget Sound Doodles LLC. team greeted Chris with his new standard puppy. His puppy, who is now named Bear, was wearing a beautiful blue bow and Chris was told the puppy was a gift. Since completing the adoption, we have had the privilege to stay in close contact with Chris and we have become close family friends. It is with a heavy heart that we will share that Chris has been hospitalized several times over the course of the years but Bear has always been by his side. Chris and Bear are the best of friends and we are blessed to have helped forge this amazing bond and friendship between Chris and Bear.
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