Chaplain Ron Leonard joins Crawford Media Group to share the story of Tali, a young dog being trained for a unique ministry of comfort and healing in Israel through Christian Friends of Israel’s Project Under His Wings.
Under His Wings ministers to people whose lives have been deeply affected by war and terrorism, including victims of the October 7 attacks, Holocaust survivors, members of the Israel Defense Forces, law enforcement officers and first responders dealing with trauma and PTSD.
Ron and his wife adopted Tali while she was still a young foster dog. Now, Ron is overseeing her early training before
00:00:00 Introduction to Under His Wings and Tally
00:00:26 Helping terror victims, Holocaust survivors, law enforcement, and IDF members
00:01:57 How Tally was adopted and begins training
00:02:51 Tally’s training journey and meaning of her name
00:04:37 Preparing Tally for therapy work in Israel
00:05:46 The cost and value of professional therapy dog training
00:06:40 Expanding the ministry and following Tally’s progress
This is Ashley Carter with the Crawford Media Group, and I am on with Chaplain Ron Leonard, who is here to talk to us about the ministry Under His Wings, as well as Christian Friends of Israel, and the great work they’re doing with a canine named Tali, who is being trained as a therapy and trauma response dog. Ron, welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, so start off just by telling me a little bit about Project Under His Wings. What is that? What is, you know, the mission? What’s going on there?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, Project Under Its Wings was started years ago by the CFI Jerusalem, and it really, really took off on October the 7th during that horrible massacre. And what they do is they work with terror victims that have been affected by the October 7th attacks. They work with Holocaust victims that are still alive that deal with the constant anti-Semitism and terror attacks. and different things like that. And then Under His Wings has expanded until working with law enforcement and also the IDF, which is the Israeli Defense Force of people that are struggling with PTSD. So that’s what Under His Wings is doing presently. And then just recently, about a month ago, they are bringing on Talley to really add to that ministry.
SPEAKER 01 :
And so when you say that they work with these victims, kind of like what is the main goal of this, just listening or rehabilitating?
SPEAKER 02 :
They provide them spiritual counseling. They provide them food. They provide them resources. They provide them housing if they’ve lost everything through attacks. And they just provide them under, you know, just basically anything that we could provide them with under his wings, which would be basically the eagle taking care of the eaglets. And so that is what Christian Friends of Israel is doing presently with them.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, and then you mentioned that they’re beginning to work with Tali. So is this a fairly new thing with the therapy trauma dogs?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it’s barely a month old. So it has just started, and they approached me. I had been working with them. with Christian Friends of Israel in San Antonio as a remote, basically just supporting their work, and I’m helping them get involved with other churches around here and different things like that, churches that really do support Israel. And then about three months ago, they asked if I would take on the position of training Tally, since I have trained therapy dogs before. And and that’s what we’re doing. And then just about a month ago, my wife, Marilyn and I, we we adopted Tally from a foster home. And so we are right now training her and it’s in the initial training. So she’s still going through the puppy training and everything.
SPEAKER 01 :
I had a cousin who trained a therapy cat, so I know it’s a little bit extensive for the therapy training. But tell me a little bit about Tally’s journey.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Tally’s journey. Tally is starting. Tally is six months old now, and she is a foster dog. She is lamb. a lab mix, and she is starting to go through the initial puppy training. We will be taking her through 18 weeks of PetSmart training, and then after that, we’ll be taking her to seizure alert training and also psychiatric training, and she will be learning how to get used to being around bomb areas where people have been bombed and everything like that through the terror thing. And then once she gets all that training, which will take about a year to 14 months, then they are flying me over to Israel, and I will be taking Tally to Israel basically to get her unattached to me to get her attached to her new trainers over there. and a little bit about her name so tally has a meaning correct yeah tally in hebrew means dew of heaven and it is used to signify blessings from god leaking to the name to spiritual and natural abundance so her name actually means dew of heaven so that’s what we decided to train i was going to call her something else but they said no can you use this i said absolutely it’s going to be your canine
SPEAKER 01 :
That sounds wonderful. And so you worked with them on choosing Tally and naming Tally and all of that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, I worked with them on choosing Tally. They were pretty much involved in the name change, and so they asked me to name her another Hebrew name, but they asked me to name her Tally, so that’s what it was. And Tally used to be Domino, and we had to get her used for the first few weeks of learning to respond to the name of Tally.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, yeah. It takes a little bit to get foster dogs used to their new names and all that stuff.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it does. It does. And so we’re excited about that. Tally, it’s an extremely smart dog. And she has learned to sit. She has learned to stay. She has learned to get used to dogs. We actually have another dog that is seven years old named Maddie. And so she has a new playmate. And so that gets her used to dogs. And now we’re getting her used to people.
SPEAKER 01 :
And so what are kind of the goals for Tali’s main focus once she gets out to Israel and starts her work?
SPEAKER 02 :
Once she arrives in Israel, her main focus is going to be up to the north, which is up about 30 minutes outside of Jerusalem. And she will be working with terror victims to begin with, people that have really been affected by the October 7th massacre. and then she’ll move into working with law enforcement and IDF, the first responders that are struggling with PTSD. So she is going to have about a four-fold ministry, which is going to be the terror victim, seizure alert, side tragic, and also working with people with PTSD.
SPEAKER 01 :
And what kind of impact does it have to have a therapy dog versus just humans listening to these people?
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s amazing. Israel is already doing some of this with their IDF and everything. But to properly train a therapy dog in Israel through a professional organization, it costs about somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000. So it is really, really high for that. I’m doing it at a much cheaper level because I’m able to find local leaders. that are here that are able to basically train her. The late Warren Wisby came up with a book a long time ago called Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. And so what I am doing is I am utilizing my training and partnering with others that are much more experienced than I am to be able to train her properly so that she can effectively be able to work with people with terror victims and also with the IDF and first responders.
SPEAKER 01 :
And so is this a ministry that they’re hoping to expand where it’s, you know, we get more dogs?
SPEAKER 02 :
They are hoping to expand it. They want to start with one dog, you know, which is fine. And then they could end up, if it works out real good, they’ll send me back to the San Antonio and I’ll start training another dog and everything like that. So they’re hoping to have two to three eventually, but that’s going to be over a five-year period. And so we’re really just looking to get this one trained. They want to see how this would work. So a tally will be… you call the guinea pig she will be working with everything and then um and then if it expands yes they will expand stock because they do have a large ministry over there and is there a website or a way that maybe our listeners could keep track with tallie’s progress and her journey yeah they can go to cfijerusalem.org that’s cfijerusalem.org forward slash under his wings which under his wings has a dash between the under dash, his dash, and wings. And when y’all do put this out as a link, it’s probably good to put that on the website so people will be able to get to it properly. And then they’ll be able to go to it, and then that’ll take them to a link of David Shield, which is part of the first responder ministry, because we’ll be working in conjunction with that. And that’s how they can find out how they can support us, how they can get involved. Plus, they can go to CFI’s Facebook page, which is just CFI Jerusalem, and they’ll be able to see Tally’s journey there. They’re hoping they kick it off after the holidays in October, and that’s when the CFI is going to do a major media thing on her.
SPEAKER 01 :
Perfect. And is that is October kind of when her training officially starts or is her training?
SPEAKER 02 :
I mean, I’m already training her now, but we want to get past October the 7th because there’s a lot of holidays, as you know, in Israel during that time. Rush, Rush, Manna, you know, different ones like that. The feast tabernacles and everything. So they want to get past those because they’re very, very busy at that time. And then it officially start off in October. Yes, will be the major media tour. Obviously, I’m training her now, but that will be the time that we really kick it off.
SPEAKER 01 :
So with your timeline, if we kick this off in October, when are we hoping that Tali’s going to be ready to head out and start her job?
SPEAKER 02 :
Start her job. Tali is hoping to be able to start her job. We were hoping within about nine months, but we’re thinking that it’s probably going to be mid-2027 when she actually goes over to Israel. It could be around the July-August time frame. That’s what we’re looking at. Obviously, as you know, goals are kind of like what they are our goals, and you’re hoping to meet those goals.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, exactly. So it’s, you know, we’ve got those goals. We’ve got those training goals. But whether she meets them right on time or a little bit later or even a little bit earlier, it’s God’s path.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, a little bit earlier. It just depends on her training. I’m going to make sure that everything is really right. And CFI has given me a real flexibility. There’s a guy named Tristan who’s their CEO. He and I know each other real well. And he says, you take as much time as we need because we want to make sure that she’s on all thrusters when she gets here.
SPEAKER 01 :
And for the people that she’s going to provide care for, is she going to be mostly focused on the IDF and the first responders, or is she going to be mostly focused on your civilian?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, she’s going to be focused on it all. It’s going to kind of be a dividing of 50-50. So she’ll be with the terror victims to begin with so they can get her comfortable around that terrain in Israel, and then she’ll move on to… to us uh to uh first responders and also the idf so we’re hoping to get her involved in encompassing ministries like one day she’ll be with terror victims the next day she’ll be with the idf the next day she’ll be with first responders kind of like that okay and then i know you said there’s more information on that website which i’ll ask you to repeat right at the end just so that we know where it is but what kind of ways can our listeners support tolly her journey and these you know basically it’s uh it basically is prayer is a lot um I’ve often heard it said, when all I can do is pray, I’m doing everything my sweet Lord has commanded me to do. So we just encourage people to pray, encourage them to get involved. They can go online and look at the CFI magazine. And they can also give if that’s what God prompts. And obviously we want people to be prompted to give. So if they want to give, they can give directly online to Talley. And they’re going to set up a special link to where people can give directly to Talley. But if it goes to the under his wings giving, they are basically directing all that training to Talley right now, all that giving.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, perfect. And then, Ron, just one more time, the website that our listeners can go to to learn about Tally.
