Judy A. Totts | The Gazette

MONTVILLE TWP. — Chris Hastings opened the sliding glass door Thursday and called to her children, Noah, 12, Josh, 7, Toby, 5, and Grace, 3, at play in the back yard.

“He’s here!” she said.

As the kids piled in the back door, Prince, a 1-year-old Labradoodle, made his entrance through the front door. Accompanied by his foster mom, Diana Fretwell of Medina, Prince romped into the house, greeting everyone as he orbited the room.

Josh immediately jumped into the loveseat in the living room and waited until the dog settled at his feet before reaching down to run his fingers through the curly white fur. After months of waiting, Prince had come home, courtesy of WAGS4Kids (Working Animals Giving Service for Kids), a nonprofit organization that provides dogs for special needs children.

Chris explained that Josh, who experienced seizures when younger and has some developmental delays in fine and gross motor skills, didn’t qualify for service dogs from several other organizations she applied to, so she had almost given up hope of getting a dog for him. The dog needed to have a hypoallergenic coat and weigh about 45 pounds when full grown.

Enter Wendy Nelson and WAGS4Kids, introduced to the Hastings through Abilikids, a physical and occupational therapy facility in Brunswick. Nelson, her staff and volunteers are in the matchmaking business — finding and training canines for kids who need a good buddy or service dog to lend a paw.

When a discouraged Chris failed to send in their application for a dog —“I kept thinking we didn’t qualify, and then I spilled coffee on it,” she explained — Nelson, who had already initiated a search to find a dog for Josh, called her. Westwood Labradoodles in Akron had a dog that matched the criteria the family specified.

Prince started his career in prison, under the guidance of inmates at the North Central Correctional Facility in Marion.

“I think 28 of the 30 prisons in Ohio have some sort of dog program,” Nelson said, giving Prince an affectionate pat and telling him to stay with Josh. “The inmates (at Marion) provide task assignment and general obedience training.”

“It gives prisoners something to feel good about,” said Jim Kelly, executive vice president of Bil-Jac Foods Inc., the Medina Township company that provides all the dog food free of charge for dogs in training with WAGS until they’re placed with their permanent home. “Some of them may never see the light of day, and this is something positive for them.”

“Some families who receive a dog will send the inmate a photo,” Nelson said, adding the inmates started a mural on the wall of the training area at North Central, painting pictures of the dogs and the children. “It’s their connection to the good thing they’re doing, a connection to humanity.”

She laughed as she recounted a story about inmates housebreaking the dogs, which are trained to go on command. The cue words are “go potty.”

“The inmates don’t want to say ‘go potty,’ so they say ‘hurry up,’ and add ‘go potty’ in a softer voice, so the other guys can’t hear,” Nelson said.

Once dogs have the basics down, they are placed with a foster family.

“In prison, they don’t have cars or movies or telephones or kids running around,” Nelson said. “Foster families give the dogs a tour of the world.”

“We took him everywhere with us,” said Fretwell, adding she and her husband, James, fostered dogs from no-kill shelters in the past but never a service dog candidate. “We took Prince to a birthday party for 3- and 4-year-olds running around, told him to sit and stay, and he never moved. You could tell he wanted to, but he stayed put. I took him to work with me every day.”

Prince, who sat near Josh, looked up at Fretwell, but didn’t move, as if to acknowledge her praise.

“Can I take him to work with me when I work?” Josh asked softly, hugging Prince as Fretwell wiped a tear from her cheek.

Transitional training takes place over several months, with the dog at first visiting his future family for a few hours, working his way up to “sleepovers.” Once the dog comes home, a WAGS trainer makes weekly visits to make sure everything is going well. After one year, the dog is signed over to the family permanently.

Nelson said they hope to place 10 dogs with families this year, with the future goal of placing a dozen each year.

“We couldn’t do this alone,” she said. “It’s tough in this economy. We need a Jim Kelly, we need a Diana, we need a vet, we need the breeders who donate dogs. WAGS just connects the pieces we need to make it happen. A lot of families that want a service or companion dog cross it off their list, thinking ‘it’s not gonna happen.’ We’re here to put it back on their list.”

For information, visit www.wags4kids.org.

Contact Judy A. Totts at (330) 721-4063 or religion@ohio.net.