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The 4 Paws Facility
To read about Karen's children, click here. In 2005 Wilcon, a local construction firm donated the time and manpower to build on to the dual garage renovating it to create a large training room, 6 dog kennels, a handicap accessible bathroom, and an office area. We had thought that this would carry us through the next 2-3 years! Surprise! We lasted only 6 months before we began to hold our training classes outside the facility, renting hotel conference rooms and/or the FOP hall across the street. Daily we talked of a much larger facility and it was in our dreams and in our prayers. In March of 2006, the VFW hall only two doors down from the existing training center went up for sale and we knew it was the fulfillment of a dream and the answer to our prayers.4 Paws took physical custody of the VFW Hall (6400 sq ft) in May of 2006 and went to work turning it into a first-rate, super center for our service dogs and their children! The training center which was built by Wilcon Corporation remains as our kennels. It took about two months to scrub the last of the nicotine off of everything in the building. We painted and cleaned and decided to keep the beautiful hand-built bar with the American Flag painted above it on the ceiling. We also kept the solid wood dance floor, the built-up stage, and the rotating dance ball on the ceiling. It makes for fun and the kids love it!
Ambucs donated two AmTrykes which are special tricycles for children with disabilities. A student group at Wright State University held a quarter long fundraising campaign and brought in a new washer and dryer, stove, 5 tricycles, a dog-a-loo dog house for the kids to climb into in order to get away, CDs and DVDs, and for outside, a puppy pen and an amazing basketball hoop with the 4 Paws logo on the backboard! 
  
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4 Paws was started in 1998 in the bedroom of our founder in a small apartment in the woods! It is hard to believe that was less than 10 years ago! In 2003 we moved from Batavia, Ohio to Xenia, Ohio when our founder purchased a house with dual garages in the back which was zoned for business. For the next two years we were able to operate using the house, the garage, and housed the dogs in advanced training with their trainer, in addition to the dogs we had in foster homes and the prison. 
We turned the bar into a puppy segregation area and left the bar itself for a place to socialize and to place food items for carry-in meals. Offices were put together and for the first time, our Executive Director and Founder left her home to go to work! 
Several clients donated items such as a huge trampoline with security netting, bicycles, and other play equipment. Impact Autism donated money to help purchase items to help the kids adjust while they visit us for training and now we have a huge play area with two large wooden structures with walls to climb, tree houses, slides, and sandboxes.
The building has a huge kitchen! It was created for all those VFW events like enormous dinners and pancake breakfasts. We kept the kitchen and it is available for the clients who want to save money while they are here or families whose children have special diets. The building had four huge multi-stall bathrooms. Since we felt we only needed the one women’s and one men’s room in the front of the building the back ones are being converted.