A local family’s lives have been transformed thanks to the Benalla Trust, which has helped them to get a new therapy dog, Pudding.
Carla Gardner and her children were heartbroken when they lost Henry, who had been the family’s faithful four-legged companion.
He sadly passed away at only eight years of age.
“He should have lived longer but he had a heart condition,” Ms Gardner said.
She said all her kids were autistic, so having a dog that they could bond with made a big difference to their lives.
“My eldest, Bee, they don’t like cuddles but with the dog they love cuddling,” she said.
“All the kids love animals. Well they like pets, they don’t like the chicken very much.
“But getting Henry was great for them. You could see how much of a difference he made.
“Once he was gone it was quite traumatic for us.”
When Henry died he left a huge hole in the family’s life.
“I wanted to get them a rescue dog,” Ms Gardner said.
“But having kids with issues, I didn’t want to get a dog that I didn’t know the background of.
“If the kids are having a meltdown it could scare the dog, so I had to get the right one.”
That is where the Benalla Trust stepped in.
It had already assisted the family in getting Henry and knew the costs associated with getting the right dog and training it might be prohibitive for the Gardners.
Trust member Peter Brown said that as soon as they heard about Henry they were keen to help in any way they could.
“Seeing we were in involved in helping them get Henry we said 100 per cent, whatever we could do to help we would,” Mr Brown said.
“So we provided the funds to get the new dog, Pudding, and we provide the training.
“That will go on for another 12 months, and we’re funding it all.
“We can pay for things like this, as we get funding from donations throughout the year and we did a lot of fundraising before COVID-19.
“We have raised a lot of money during the past 18 years.
“The local service clubs support us and we’ve got a Benalla Lions member on the board who has been a part of the trust since we started.
“And a project like this is why we do it.”
Ms Gardner said Pudding had been great and was already part of the family.
“He’s still a puppy, so there’s a lot of things we need to be careful of,” she said.
“We had the Christmas tree up high this year, and we don’t leave soft toys lying around … he really loves socks, too.”
Mr Brown said the trust would like to say a special thank you to Peter Davis Rural, which had sponsored this project by providing 12 months of dog food.