PAALS gives service dogs and the people they help a new sense of purpose – from veterans coping with PTSD, to children on the autism spectrum and clients with mobility issues.
Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services is a Columbia-based nonprofit that trains service dogs to assist people who have physical, intellectual and emotional disabilities.
PAALS has grown into one of South Carolina’s leading service-dog training organizations since its founding in 2006.
For many clients, receiving a service dog marks the start of a new chapter, said executive director Melissa Payne.
“Everything that we do, the end result is to enrich someone’s life,” Payne said. “Our mission is to empower and enrich individuals with disabilities through pairing them with service dogs.”
Each PAALS dog goes through nearly two years of intensive preparation before being matched with a client. Trainers expose the dogs to real-world situations — grocery stores, classrooms, buses and restaurants. And they teach them more than 70 cues — opening/closing doors, retrieving items, and even flushing a toilet — so they’re ready to support their future partners, wherever life may take them.
“Most people say, oh, you train service dogs,” Payne said. “Yeah, we do, but really we help people. We change lives. And that’s priceless.”
Kaylyn Sinclair is one of the many people who has had their life changed by PAALS.
Sinclair has been wheelchair bound since she was 6 years old. She spent her youth and young adult years in Georgia, where she had help from family, friends and her boyfriend if she needed.
Two years ago, Sinclair moved from Georgia to start graduate school in Columbia, South Carolina, not knowing the lack of accessibility her new home had to offer her, Sinclair said.
“South Carolina is truly one of the least accessible places I’ve ever been — it’s terrible,” Sinclair said. “I started to get pretty anxious just about going out on a day-to-day basis. And I was like, OK, I think it’s time. I just need that extra support.”
That “extra support” turned out to be Sammie, a two-year-old, female yellow Labrador retriever from PAALS.
For Sinclair, picking up dropped items, taking off a jacket, opening and closing doors, require more physical strain from her as a manual wheelchair user.
Sammie, however, makes these daily tasks that may appear simple to most, much easier. And she provides physical and emotional relief, Sinclair said.
“She can do so many things,” Sinclair said. “She picks stuff up for me, she carries and holds things for me. She can push open doors and pull them closed. But a really big thing is that she offers that companionship of just having someone there. I can tell a significant change in my anxiety, and Sammie’s not even an emotional support dog.”
PAALS’s mission extends beyond service-dog placement.
It has PAALS programs throughout the Midlands, including School PAALS, Prison PAALS, Summer PAALS and Prisma PAALS, which educate the community about the nonprofit’s efforts, while positively affecting as many lives as possible.