Hearing & Service Dogs of Minnesota

In 1987, Al Peters had the idea that he wanted to do something to give back to his home state of Minnesota. He loves dogs, so his ears perked up when his wife, an audiologist, returned from a conference in California with a brochure about Assistance Dogs and the help they give to people with disabilities. The idea of training dogs to help the more than 140,000 hearing-disabled Minnesotans who could benefit from the services of an assistance dog led Al to found Hearing and Service Dogs of Minnesota [HSDM].

HSDM primarily trains two kinds of dogs: hearing and service. Hearing dogs are trained in a client's home, with training involving the trainer, the dog, and the client.

"We have systems and equipment that allow the deaf person to learn our methods and participate in the training of the dog," says Al. Trainers teach a weekly lesson in the home, and the client then practices with the dog on a daily basis. The trainers then troubleshoot the last week's lesson as well as teach a new lesson. Hearing dog training lasts four months.

Service dogs tend to be placed with clients who have mobility issues, and take six months to train. While hearing dogs are often smaller and are usually rescued from animal shelters, service dogs tend to be large breeds and are almost exclusively bred for the job, to assure good physical health and temperament. They are typically larger than hearing dogs due to the fact that their workloads can be heavier. They spend their first 18 months being brought up in volunteer puppy-raising homes before they come to live with Al at HSDM, where they are trained in a large number of tasks. They are taught to retrieve anything from a dime to a backpack, find cordless phones in an emergency, open doors, turn on lights, as well as countless other tasks.

Results Achieved with MYOB

Perhaps Al and his staff's experience with training leads them to be exemplary students when the shoe is on the other foot. Terri Zeh Jacobson, founder of Resources for Small Business and HSDM's Certified Consultant, is the MYOB trainer of choice for HSDM.

"I only come in a couple of times per year," Terri says of her visits where she explains the use of new features and refreshes the staff on software procedures. "Otherwise, AccountEdge Network Edition works so well that they [HSDM] are self-sufficient."

Al found Terri when his previous MYOB Certified Consultant moved to Australia. "Terri likes our mission and the fact that we provide our trained dogs free of charge to people with disabilities," Al says. Terri recommended AccountEdge Network Edition for HSDM, as the company needed a Mac small business accounting product that could do networking. "They have multiple users and they're Mac," Terri explains when asked why she upgraded HSDM to Network Edition. "It's a slam-dunk."

"She introduced us to the AccountEdge Network Edition and advised us that it was the best solution for a small company that uses a Macintosh network like we do," says Al. HSDM has 14 employees, so the ability to have his employees working on his company file simultaneously is crucial. He primarily uses AccountEdge Network Edition to track income and expenses, and with 14 employees, payroll is a must, and is easily run through the payroll command center located within the software.

The multi-year budgeting features found in AccountEdge Network Edition are important tools for HSDM. They allow him to view budgets for the current year and the next year. "I'm thrilled with the budgeting features," says Al. "We can now enter budget numbers in multiple years, which allows for more efficient, better planning."

HSDM is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or disabled, and Al and his company are making good on that promise. As of December 2006, 223 Assistance Dogs have been placed with people with disabilities. "142 of those are hearing dogs, 75 are service dogs, and six are Special Skills Dogs," Al says. "Our vision for the future is that every person who needs and wants an assistance dog can have one."

For Al and his staff at HSDM, MYOB AccountEdge Network Edition, and Certified Consultant Terri Zeh Jacobson are important tools in making that vision become reality.