Service Dog a Calming Presence For Entire Family

Chancer trained to deal with child who has fetal alcohol syndrome

By Helena Oliviero
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
North Fulton County News
November 6, 2009

Eleven-year-old Morasha Winokur never knows what to expect from her brother, Iyal, when riding the school bus home together.

Iyal Winokur, 11, hangs out with his service dog Chancer at his Roswell home. Iyal has fetal alcohol syndrome and can have tantrums. Chancer helps to calm him.

Morasha Winokur, 11, wrote a book about life with her brother. Both were adopted from Russian orphanages.

Iyal Winokur was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome when he was 4.

Chancer is believed to be the first dog trained to help a child with fetal alcohol syndrome. The dog nuzzles Iyal Winokur's neck or puts his paw on him when he has a tantrum.

Or he might get in her face and yell.

What is predictable is this: Once they get to their Roswell home, Iyal will see his dog, Chancer, and settle down.

For Morasha and her family, Chancer has made home a little more peaceful for the family and for Iyal, 11, who has fetal alcohol syndrome.

Before the dog arrived, Iyal was fidgety and prone to outbursts, often directed at his sister.

“He would say my name over and over. Morasha. Morasha. He would sing it. He would yell it,” Morasha said. “But now, he is more interested in Chancer.”

Chancer is believed to be the country’s first-ever service dog trained to deal with a child who has fetal alcohol syndrome, which is caused by women who drink alcohol while pregnant.

Morasha shares her experience of growing up with Iyal and how life has changed with Chancer in a book she wrote: “My Invisible World: Life with My Brother, His Disability & His Service Dog.”

The book, which Morasha decided to start writing three years ago, was published by Better Endings New Beginnings and recently hit book stores across metro Atlanta.

“I wanted to educate people. I want people to know women shouldn’t drink alcohol when they are pregnant,” Morasha said. “And I wanted to share our story.”

She writes of Iyal: “If he wants attention, he is like a big baseball mitt. All the attention goes directly to him and everyone tries to catch his ball and hold on. In fact, he gets so much attention that there are times I feel like no even realizes I am there. This is when my invisible world gets really big, and I feel really small.”


A diagnosis
When Donnie, a TV producer at the time, and Harvey Winokur, a rabbi, met in 1997, they were both in their early 40s and eager to start a family. They got married less than three months after their first date and, after a few months of failed fertility treatments, went to plan B: adoption.

Working with an agency that focuses on Russian adoptions, they waited only a few months before they were given a video of Morasha and Iyal, born just two days apart and living in separate orphanages. In the videos, each lasting only about three minutes, Morasha and Iyal, both just more than a year old, appeared malnourished and very small for their age. Donnie and Harvey thought all the babies really needed was a loving home.

Once home, Iyal started walking almost immediately. Morasha took a bit more time. Many people mistook the two for twins and for the first two years they seemed like twins. They played with the same toys; they read books in matching rocking chairs.

But when Iyal started preschool, his parents noticed troubling behavior. He began to have frequent angry outbursts and tantrums.

And then one day a report came home from the preschool: Iyal got on a bike and purposely ran into another child.

“I knew that was not right. That was not acceptable,” mother Donnie Winokur said.

A developmental pediatrician diagnosed Iyal with FAS when he was 4 years old.

FAS is considered the extreme end of a spectrum of disorders known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). The group of disorders can range from mild to severe and can include abnormal facial features, poor coordination, hyperactive behavior, poor memory and low IQ. Iyal’s condition is considered to be in the severe range.

“At first, the diagnosis is just words on a paper,” said his mother, who is featured in a video about the disorder made by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and posted on its Web site, and is also the executive director of the newly created Georgia chapter of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS). “And there’s no substance until you start living with it and you start having different fears and different levels of grieving. And you live your life like you are in constant anticipation of a hurricane.”

Over time, the age and developmental gap between Morasha and Iyal has widened. Though both are in the sixth grade, Iyal is in special education classes and has a teacher’s aide who works with him full time.

He reads at about the third-grade level, but his mother worries he might never be able to live independently as an adult. Morasha’s worries are more immediate. Her brother’s unpredictable behavior is so demanding, she gets left out.

“Iyal will get his way,” their mother acknowledges. “I tell Morasha to go with it. It’s hard for her. It’s not fair. Life is not fair. But it’s still OK. And everybody deserves to be loved and have a family.”

Still, the Winokurs were determined to find a way for the whole family to cope with Iyal’s disability.

So two years ago, Donnie Winokur saw a brochure about service dogs and contacted 4 Paws for Ability. The Ohio-based organization, which trains about 100 dogs a year, mostly for autistic children, had never trained a dog for FAS. But the executive director, Karen Shirk, agreed to give it her best shot.

A dog to the rescue
The Winokurs sent the trainer video footage of Iyal in full-fledged tantrums, sobbing and thrashing about, and unable to sit still at the kitchen table.

After watching the video, Shirk picked Chancer, a golden retriever with deep brown eyes, for Iyal. She believed Chancer’s calm demeanor would make him a good fit.

“We needed a dog of a larger size and not the kind of dog that would feed off of Iyal’s emotions,” said Shirk. “A dog that wouldn’t be afraid of Iyal’s meltdowns and a dog that would go with the flow. And that was Chancer.”

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers is unaware of any other dogs trained to assist a child with FAS.

Shirk said she’s already training two more FAS dogs out of requests from parents who heard about Iyal’s dog.

To train Chancer, Shirk used Iyal’s tantrums as “signals” or “commands” for the dog. Chancer was trained to disrupt erratic behavior by “nuzzling” Iyal’s neck or putting his paw on Iyal when he had a tantrum. But if Iyal thrashes about violently, Iyal’s mother will order Chancer to stay back so he won’t get hurt.

When Iyal seems jittery or unable to sit still, Chancer will lay his 90-pound body across Iyal’s legs to help calm him down. Chancer also gives Iyal lots of sloppy kisses.

“Chancer was happy. His brown eyes sent signals of dog happiness. ...” Morasha wrote in her book.

Since Chancer joined the family, the outbursts have declined, as well as the intensity. Iyal started opening up about his feelings and his illness.

“He would say: ‘Why does God make me break things?’ And he said, ‘Why did my birth mother drink alcohol?’ ” Donnie Winokur said.

And then one day, he showed concern for Chancer.

“Did Chancer’s mommy drink alcohol when Chancer was in her tummy?” he asked his mother.

A calm family
On a recent afternoon, Morasha and Iyal eat a bowl of cereal after arriving home on the school bus. Iyal fusses because he wants chocolate, but he settles on Reese’s Puffs cereal.

After they finish the snack, Morasha calls a friend.

Iyal goes directly to Chancer.

Chancer licks Iyal’s face. Iyal hugs his dog.

“Happy, you make me happy,” Iyal says to his dog.

Iyal then retreats to a room downstairs to play video games. With Chancer at his feet, Iyal seems content.

And so does the entire family.

“Chancer has softened the hard edges,” said Donnie Winokur. “We needed another character in the play. ... And that was Chancer.”

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) are caused by a woman drinking alcohol during pregnancy.

FASDs refers to conditions that can range from mild to severe and can include abnormal facial features, poor coordination, hyperactive behavior, poor memory and low IQ.

It is estimated that fetal alcohol syndrome, a severe form of a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, occurs in about 1 of every 1,000 births. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports the number of all alcohol-related conditions resulting from prenatal exposure of alcohol could be as high as 1 in every 100 live births.

A woman who drinks any alcohol throughout the pregnancy is at risk since there is no known amount of alcohol that is safe to drink while pregnant, but larger amounts of alcohol and binge drinking are more harmful than drinking smaller amounts.

To see the CDC video of Iyal’s story, go to www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/videos/index.html

Source: CDC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and American Academy of Pediatrics.

Bita Honarvar, bhonarvar@ajc.com

http://www.ajc.com/news/north-fulton/service-dog-a-calming-188966.html

© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution