Service dog sits in on Kids Korps event
“Honor Our Heroes.” This was the message at Rancho Santa Fe School on March 5. The Kids Korps Club, the school’s community service program, kicked off a new event called “Honor Our Heroes.” The event is meant to highlight those children in local schools and community who are performing wonderful “Acts of Kindness” outside of school. By teaching students all about their “Act of Kindness,” Kids Korps hopes to ignite a chain reaction to teach others that they, too, can help to make the world a better place, according to Dana Knees, RSF advisor.
Kids Korps member Adam Knees had the following comments about the March 5 program:
“Today at the RSF Performing Arts Center, I witnessed a fellow student, named Carson Wehlage, talk about his disability of autism and how he and his service dog, Lexie, help one another.
“I learned that Lexie is one of the first autism safety dogs in the United States and she began training when she was just 8 weeks old in a prison.
“Lexie shared some nice tricks that help Carson, like helping him to clean up his room, and handing him a tissue when he sneezes. Carson explained and showed us how Lexie actually saved his life once when he ran into the street! Because Lexie and Carson are so special, he told us that he and his mom and Lexie have even been in a pilot TV show for the Animal Planet featuring dogs that are heroes and have changed people’s lives!
“I hope Carson feels good about what he did, and now that everyone knows he has autism, they will treat him how they would want to be treated if they had the disorder. I know that whoever went to the performing arts center at lunch really made Carson feel good about himself. It was my favorite event of the month!
“If you want to learn more about where and how Lexie was trained, go to: https://www.neads.org/page.aspx?pid=420. and click on the middle window, the Prison Pup partnership. Lexie was trained every day in the same place using the same methods you see there (in a prison!) To see a photo of Carson & Lexie in action, go to this page and look at the Halt — ER dog program: https://