Ten10 was borne out of the convergence of two seemingly disparate occurrences. The first involved my son Tyler and his wife Esther. They own a dog training company and a few years ago, they worked with a client to turn their dog Razmik into a well mannered family pet. Their client was a single mother with a 10 year old son who was fighting for his life against cancer. Upon completion of the training, they realized that Razmik had the potential to be so much more than a family pet. Tyler felt that they could train him to be a service companion to the little boy. The boy was often very weak due to chemotherapy, and they discussed training Razmik to help the boy get in and out of bed or a chair, turn lights on and off, and retrieve things, especially mom. Unfortunately, despite cutting their fees to the bone, and offering to set up a payment plan, the mom simply could not afford any more money for training. 

I could tell that Tyler and Esther had heavy hearts as they recounted the story to me. It was during this time that I was beginning to emerge from a season of my life that had been filled with great personal loss and tragedy. One of the things that helped me greatly during this time was the unconditional love and companionship of my Yellow Labrador, Nani. She just seemed to instinctively know how to brighten my day. If you have never experienced the joy that comes from having a companion like this, it is not easy to explain. Suffice to say that without her, this period of my life would have been far less bearable and considerably longer. So as I pondered this “reconstruction” phase of my life, it occurred to me how sad it was that there are people who don’t have the same experience that I did, either through a lack of knowledge, or, as in the case of Tyler’s client,  a lack of money. Wouldn’t it be great if someone could acquire, train and place assistance dogs at no charge to the family in need? Well, that was the impetus that sparked the creation of Ten10.

Steve Edge, President