I’m sorry, but having Sibes as service dogs is akin to having Chow Chows do it. Actually, no, Chows might be slightly better. They’d at least just walk away, not run away, from their charges (Chows don’t like to run).

Sibes are cute tho! that’s why they were chosen. cute cute puppies

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for sharing our story and helping to bring awareness. Unfortunately ours is not the only service dog scam story out there so we are really hoping more national attention will be given to this issue. We do not want to see another heartbroken family!

Thank you so much for posting this! We are one of the families involved in this mess and it is heartbreaking.

Yeah I read about this yesterday and if I were involved in this and I had been sent a picture of a Siberian Husky that was to be the service dog for my child that would have put up a huge red flag for me. Siberian Huskies are bred to literally run until they collapse, eat, sleep and do it again. As a dog person there are many breeds that would be fitting. Labs, golden retrievers but a husky no way. I understand these people are broken-hearted and that someone took advantage of their hope-despicable.

1. The photos of the puppies I’ve seen look more like the “mini Huskies” (Alaska Klee Kai, strain developed in the 1980s) than Huskies
2. To the best of my knowledge, northern spitz-type dogs of any flavor are not widely used as service dogs.
3. According to some reports, L.M. Kaydus won the voting based on providing 10 free service dogs, but Global Giving required her to change the grant application to more tangible goods that could be evaluated.
4. Here is the text of an email that is reputedly from a Pepsi Refresh employee
“The original application approved in moderation was a one line budget requesting $50,000 to train autism service dogs. Because this was such a broad application and one that Global Giving (the company that runs the Pepsi Grant) could not approve for her project, they thought it would make more sense for her to use the grant funds for tangible items related to her project, including vests and collars, a physical training facility, grooming stations, and more. Her grant agreement that was signed and approved by Global Giving shows these 20+ line items. She moved her budget towards the tangible, per our request, to avoid issuing an individual a check for $25,000 to pay for less material costs, such as staff. All of these expenses for her project went both directly and indirectly towards the dog training costs.

From Global Giving and Pepsi’s point of view, that grantee was in compliance with her grant agreement and her original application. The story that you sent was around the original project describes exactly what GlobalGiving and Pepsi approved in our due diligence process.”
5. This does bring into question the oversight that Global Giving has over its funded projects. Personally I wouldn’t get involved with another project through them.

My question goes to Patty of North Star – those of us that might be interested in sending funds to you to help in the situation of the 10 families promised a dog by AFA – what will you use the funds for? Will you raise/train and give a service dog to the 10 families in question FREE OF CHARGE or will the funds just go to run your program and you will then turn around and charge your normal fee of $10,000? I saw an article about Luka, a service dog in training with your facility that you handed over to a family but they still are having to pay you $10,000 on top of the dog only being 10 months old and NOT ready to serve is in training yet living with the child it is being trained to help. I also seriously question your ethics of asking for funds for your program on to a blog that is trying to help 10 families that were promised a service dog free of charge to them from another organization.