Photo Courtesy Kerian McCormick

By Chris Brown

GoFundMe page started

Local man barking up donations to get a service dog

Jan 5, 2023 | 4:14 PM

REDCLIFF, AB – One Redcliff man says getting a four-legged companion will improve his quality of life and is turning to the community for assistance.

Kerian McCormick has lived with daily seizures since being hospitalized in June, sometimes having multiple episodes per day. He says a service dog would help keep him and his partner alert to his own condition and seizure warning signs.

“Being able to comfort me and like licking and nuzzling is a big thing with service dogs, making sure that I’m still alert and staying as alert as possible. As well as the deep-pressure therapy; I have a lot of sensory issues so even just having something there with me I can touch, I can feel something’s going on,” he says. “Then it’ll really help as well as just with general anxiety, having something there with you is really important.”

McCormick suffers from PNES, a non-epileptic seizure disorder. He describes it as “spacing out” to the point that he loses partial mobility of his body. Episodes can last anywhere from 10 minutes to up to an hour, he says.

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The mobility issues, for which McCormick uses walking aids, forced him to quit his job working at a daycare in Redcliff. He says that’s become another stressor on mental health issues like anxiety, panic attacks and PTSD that he’s struggled with for almost a decade.

McCormick says his mental health would also improve with a service dog.

“Having, like, a partner in crime really would be super important. Being able to have somebody that could go out in public with me so I won’t have panic attacks, I won’t feel as anxious,” he says.

The 21-year-old did a bottle drive this week, has reached out to local businesses and has started a GoFundMe to raise money to get himself a service dog.

McCormick says he’ll be going through the Paws 4 Resiliency program in Medicine Hat, and he has already been matched with a dog, Ruth. He says the total program cost is $6,000 whoch includes $400 for the dog and $150 weekly for 25 total weeks of training, as well as supplies, grooming, and medical expenses.