Welcome to Helfende Pfoten e.V. for assistance dogs and their humans
Greeting of the Board of Directors
We are Heiko, Tanja and Katharina, the board of Helfende Pfoten e.V for assistance dogs and their humans. Together with other dedicated people, we founded Helping Paws in 2017 to enable young people with disabilities to achieve their dream of having an assistance dog.
For us, well-trained assistance dogs are a wonderful way to give young people with disabilities and their families a little piece of normalcy and independence.
We collect donations, look for suitable dogs, train them and give them to selected families with a “special” child or young person with a disability. In joint training, man and dog become a team, which appreciates and lovingly deals with each other, shapes everyday life and masters their lives. We want to see children’s eyes light up and provide (young) people with disabilities with a reliable four-legged friend and partner.
Unlike many human assistants, dogs are often accepted much more quickly. Dogs find a very unique approach to people with disabilities, increase independence and promote social life. Alert dogs often detect medical emergencies earlier than mechanical aids, providing safety and freedom.
For us, the basis of our work is that man and dog fit together. Competence, individuality and appreciation are a matter of course for us and lead to a long, successful, satisfied life together of human and assistance dog. For this we collect donations, advise and accompany the families and teams, for this the entire board works voluntarily and with a lot of commitment.
How can even more children’s eyes light up? With your support and donation.
Our motivation
Seven people from the Rhineland have joined together in our association as founding members: seven who are concerned with the topic of assistance dogs from the most diverse perspectives:
as trainers, as relatives and as affected persons.
We are very happy about the different points of view and also consciously promote this diversity. Those who know us know that we have dedicated ourselves to the field of assistance dogs with full commitment and a lot of heart.
Help
There are still many teams that have not gotten their fundraising totals together. We have already developed various models that can reduce the cost of an assistance dog, but anyone who has such a faithful companion themselves knows that a lot of work is required to have a reliable working dog by your side and this work must be paid for. Over the cost of the puppy, food, supplies, vet checks, socialization in the foster family, basic training, specialized training, to the final exam, it adds up to quite a bit.
Become a member
Our association is gladly open to interested people, also and especially if they want to deal intensively with the topic “living with an assistance dog”. If your (time) capacities are limited, we would be pleased about a supporting membership. In this way, they show that the topic is close to their hearts, support people with limited financial means and make the careful training of an assistance dog and of course our work possible with their sponsorship contribution.
Of course we are registered in the register of associations of the district court of Cologne (No.: 19562) and have the recognition of the pursuit of “exclusively and directly charitable, benevolent or ecclesiastical purposes (tax-privileged purposes) …” from the tax office Bergisch Gladbach. Thus, we are allowed to issue “donation receipts and your donation is used exclusively for the purpose of the association. Since the entire board is volunteers, we are currently able to give 95% of the donations we receive directly to our projects. 5% of the donations are needed for expenses like liability insurance, bank fees, tax advisor,…. needed.
