After sustaining a catastrophic traumatic brain injury while snowboarding in 2011, Forrest Allen, son of Dr. Kent Allen and Dr. Rae Stone of The Plains, has spent over two years collectively in seven different hospitals, undergoing more than twenty complicated surgeries.

Music Therapy with Tom Sweitzer at A Place To Be in Middleburg was key to Forrest regaining his speech and gave him a new place to thrive, while a new best friend with four paws from Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) has helped him regain confidence and motivation.

July unfortunately found Forrest back at Johns Hopkins for more surgery and two more weeks of hospitalization. Determined to get his strength back, Forrest and his ever present Canine Companions Service Dog, Toliver, began training daily for the CCI Dog Fest Walk and Roll Fundraiser on September 12th in Arlington, VA.

Forrest will be walking with his life long friend Caroline Elgin, of The Plains, and her CCI Service Dog, Shelly, as co-chairs of the Middleburg Labradorables Fundraising Team.

While at Johns Hopkins Forrest and Toliver trained daily, walking more than 3400 steps each day up and down and all around the hospital corridors. They made frequent stops along the way to visit with other hospitalized patients in need of a special Labrador hug and kiss. Forrest and Toliver hope that together with Caroline and Shelly, "we can raise lots of money for CCI so that other people with special needs will find their best four legged friend through CCI too."

Canine Companions for Independence is a national nonprofit celebrating 40 years of enhancing the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly trained service dogs, like Toliver and Shelly to people like Forrest and Caroline. CCI breeds their own dogs in Santa Rosa, California (Labradors, goldens and crosses of the two) to try to start the puppies with the best temperaments, trainability and health factors possible.

The pups are then sent nation-wide to volunteer puppy raisers who generously pour their love and energy into the youngsters for 13-18 months. These kind people provide the puppies with basic obedience and socialization. Middleburg has a thriving puppy raising group that always welcomes people interested in giving back in this way. Forrest's older brother, Austin, has, in fact, taken on the joys and challenges of puppy raising a yellow lab cross named Martin while getting his Masters at Duke University.

At about a year and a half, the dogs are returned to one of five regional centers, where they receive extensive health and temperament testing. Those who are selected to continue get six to nine months of training with professional Canine Companion instructors. They learn over 40 specialized commands, including picking up dropped items, turning light switches on and off, opening and closing doors, etc., before being matched with their new, forever human. Only 40 percent of the pups make it through the stringent process, ensuring truly skilled working dogs, while the others are offered back to the puppy raisers.

Canine Companions offers service dogs, hearing dogs, skilled companions for those unable to handle the dog independently, and facility dogs that are used in healthcare settings, court rooms, etc. CCI also has a special Veterans Initiative.

All of Canine Companions programs are absolutely free of charge to the recipients, thanks to the many volunteers and donors. But Forrest and Caroline want to do all they can to give back for the life-changing partners they have received, so more people with disabilities can benefit.

Last year the Middleburg Labradorables fund raising team raised more money at the Washington-area DogFest Walk and Roll than at any other.

Forrest and Caroline are looking for more team members to join them at the September 12th walk, and for people ready to make a donation to their Team.

Please go to www.cci.org to learn more, or to http://www.cci.org/dogfestwashingtondc/middleburglabradorables2015 to make a donation.