By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
ALEX George’s black labrador puppy, Baymax, may have graduated puppy school but he needs a further two years of training to become a true four-legged carer for seizure-prone Alex.
Eight-year-old Alex has autism, and an autism assistance dog is his mum Rebecca’s dream for her son.
“I’m hopeful raising and training a puppy with Alex will help keep him safe and improve his life,” Rebecca said.
The George family picked up Baymax in August and were lucky to receive free puppy schooling, worming and food from Cranbourne’s Best Friends Pet Care SuperCentre but are still on the waiting list for the vital autism assistance training.
“We don’t know how long the wait will be to get into Service Dog Training Victoria – there are 20 families ahead of us on the list,” Rebecca said.
“I’m hoping we’ll be in within six months but we are currently fund-raising to pay for the two years of specialist training.”
Alex, who attends Clyde Primary School, once wandered out of the school grounds alone and Rebecca said being epileptic and a short-circuit seizure sufferer he is “safety risk”.
“Baymax once trained will give me some peace of mind and he will also be a seizure alert dog, which means they can sometimes sense a seizure up to 10 minutes before it happens, which means nearby adults can get Alex into a safe place,” she said.
Naming his new buddy Baymax after the Big Hero 6 character, Rebecca said it was perfectly ironic.
“Baymax is a health carer companion in the Disney film so when Alex decided to call his own health carer Baymax we thought it was a fitting co-incidence.”
The George family is holding a raffle and dinner event at the Spaghetti Tree Restaurant in Melbourne on Friday 13 November to help pay for Baymax’s training.
Items to be raffled off include a signed Wallabies jersey, Samsung tablet, midweek getaway in the Hepburn Springs plus a spa voucher, wall art and an Ella Bache voucher.
“Tickets are $50 a head which includes canapes and sparkling wine and we have more than $5000 worth of auction items – but eight tickets have been sold so far and we can’t run the night with that many people,” Rebecca said.
To purchase tickets to Alex and Baymax’s fund-raising event visit companion4alex.com
