Hi, my name is Alex Linders, and I am 25 years old. My service dog in trainings name is Apollo. He is a little over a year now and has had a year in service dog training behind him now. He still has about a year and a half of training to go to become my fully fledged service dog. What does a service dog mean for me? For me having a service dog means freedom and safety. I have quite a few mental and physical disabilities that make it hard for me to live a day to day life like everyone else. I can barely go outside on my own. Due to my CPTSD and autism I get very overwhelmed by the world around me, resulting in panic attacks and meltdown. I feel unsafe alone and stay mostly inside. Having my service dog with me means I feel safer and am able to go outside again. Go to a café, go on the train, and hopefully go to school or work again once he is fully trained. He also helps me with my physical disabilities. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user (meaning I can walk very short distances but am in need of a wheelchair if I wanna walk longer than a few minutes). What tasks does he do? For my physical disabilities he does things like pick things up that I drop or help me open doors etc. He also does deep pressure therapy (DPT) to regulate my central nervous system. This both slows down my heart-rate for my physical disabilities as well as calm me when I’m in a panic attack. For my mental disabilities he helps me by grounding me, alerting me to overstimulation and (oncoming) panic attacks, he helps me calm down, and he makes me feel safe and able to go outside again. What do I need and why? I need €9,500 to pay for his last bit of training. I originally had the funds but that sadly fell through due to a much needed move to a wheelchair friendly apartment as well as medical needs for me and my childhood dog who recently passed away. I need this money in the next few weeks or I will have to quit the training with my service dog. It would significantly reduce the quality of my life again. Before him I was severely depressed and suicidal. He has given me back a my life and a future. Thank you so much for your share or donation, it will help him help me and will give me back my freedom and safety.