At Honey’s Garden for Medical Alert Dogs SA, we are desperately trying to bring Service Dogs for people with diabetes and epilepsy to South Africa and Namibia.
We are currently running on a private level and have a few lucky clients that are able to pay for this costly training. We do not charge more than 50% of what these dogs actually cost to train and certify.
We want to be able to help more people that cannot pay for a dog privately and afford decent facilities that will not only benefit the training of the dogs but the education and training of the new owners.
A dog costs in excess of R80 000. We charge our clients R50 000. We need around R200 000 to develop our systems and facilities to an adequate place where our standards will be as high as international training centres.
Our goal is to help as many dogs to help as many people as possible. It is not a glamorous job, but it is so rewarding. We have already trained a few dogs that have already saved their people’s lives by alerting to low blood sugar, and we are just on the tip of the iceberg.
South Africa does not have service dogs for Medical disabilities and so we are really hoping to make it happen! We just need the funding to get there. We have been using private funds and donations to get by, and are attempting to set up a PBO so that we can get corporate sponsorship for these people, but it is not an easy road.
