Mountain Made K9 and Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT) have signed an agreement to work together to provide LIFTT consumers and the community with resources and education relating to service dogs.
As defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a service dog is “a dog that is trained to perform tasks or do work for a person with a disability.” Under the ADA, such dogs are allowed to accompany the person they are trained to assist in all areas that members of the public are permitted to go. Among the tasks that service dogs routinely perform include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack.
Under the terms of the agreement between LIFTT and Mountain Made K9, consumers who work with LIFTT to apply for outside grant funding for service dog training will be referred to Mountain Made, who will determine the type and duration of training that may be required for both the dog and handler and if grant funds are awarded, provide the needed training.
“Although not appropriate for every person or situation, a trained service dog can be a great assistance to a person with a disability in being able to achieve and maintain their independence both at home and in the community. We thank Mountain Made K9 for agreeing to work with us on this project to assist the consumers and communities we serve by providing their high-quality consultative and training services,” said LIFTT executive director Carlos Ramalho.
About Mountain Made K9 (MMK9): MMK9 is a privately owned dog training company based out of Billings, Montana. MMK9 trains pets and working service dogs, police k9s, protection dogs, scent detection k9s, and search and rescue dogs. MMK9 aims to produce high-performance dogs by providing the highest quality dog training possible.
About Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT): LIFTT is a Montana 501(c)3 corporation organized as a Center for Independent Living (CIL). With team members based in Billings and Glendive, LIFTT provides people with disabilities with programs and services that help empower them to break down the physical, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that prevent them from being fully independent participants in their lives and communities throughout 18 counties in southeastern and south central Montana: Big Horn, Carbon, Carter, Custer, Dawson, Fallon, Garfield, Golden Valley, McCone, Musselshell, Powder River, Prairie, Richland, Stillwater, Wibaux, and Yellowstone. For more information, please visit liftt.org or download our mobile app for Apple or Google Play.
You can donate to LIFTT by clicking here.