bayleigh

from Bayleigh's mom:
We first heard about 'Diabetes Service Dogs about 2 years ago and
began to research the idea. That's when we learned about Heaven
Scent Paws (HSP). Everything we learned from the web site seemed
very positive. We could at no time find anything negative about the
organization.They talked about their training program for the dogs and
showed many pictures and stories of successful alert dog/child
pairings. In July of 2007, we were accepted into the February 2008
class. We made the our required $1500.00 deposit within 30 days of
our acceptance and paid the remaining $4500.00 by the end of
October. They explained that $6000.00 was the minimum 'donation'
they would accept for the dog but that any extra money raised would
go to other families who couldn't raise the minimum donation. They
stated on the web site that each dog cost $16,000.00 to $25,000.00
to train.

In February my daughter, my 4 month old infant and I went to Missouri to do the training and to get our dog.
The first dog we were given constantly nipped at my daughter - and it was blamed on her for not being
aggressive enough with the dog. The second dog we were given was terrified of everything, including me. It
shook and cringed whenever I got close to it for the first couple of days. When this dog went to the bathroom
in the hotel room, HSP blamed it on the fact that my daughter hadn't taken him potty enough. In reality, the
dog messed in the hotel room THREE times - and each time was within 20 mins of having a lengthy potty
break. Many of the dogs had "accidents' in public places . . . these "service" dogs were not even properly
house-broken!

After we had raised and turned in all our funds, a contract came for
our family to sign. We felt like we had no choice but to sign the
contract, because we were told by Michele Reinkemeyer that if we
chose not to sign we would be removed from the program
andneither we, nor any of our donors, would receive a refund - - and
we would not get a service dog.