And the answer is.....APPROVAL!

So after months of waiting, and waiting, and getting distracted by IEP's and inept school administrators, and more waiting, I finally wrote back to the kennel letting them know that we hadn't had a response, and asking if they could recommend any other programs who might be able to help (under the assumption that no answer meant NO).

Well, lo and behold a few minutes later I got an e-mail back from the program coordinator.  He expressed surprise (and possibly a little irritation/offense) that I had written, as he had already tried to contact me several times to let us know that the preliminary application had been approved, without success of course.  He had assumed that we were no longer interested.

This is the difficulty of international communications, especially where nearly an entire day separates the parties.  Emails were lost (seriously I never got them, though I'm not sure the program coordinator believes me), phone calls missed (which I completely feel terrible about), and then voicemails overlooked (since I didn't recognize the number, and for some reason we've been getting a lot of 'junk mail' calls on our VOIP number).

I've also failed to follow up as well as I should have.  Distractions have abounded, with school crises, IEP meetings (so many of them), illness, and I have let things slide.  I guess this is my lesson to not let the speed bumps in life distract me from everything else.

So, the long and short is that our preliminary application has been approved.  We now have to move onto the in depth "official" application...which also means working to convince my better half that he wants to pay $10,000 for a dog having a bad hair day (as he describes Labradoodles).

I am terribly nervous...it won't be easy to convince my husband that all the agony (nothing like trying to import a dog into a country that doesn't like importing dogs and doesn't recognize service dogs) and the money (oh how much it will be), will greatly enhance our daughter's life.  It is also an awesome commitment, and a process in which SO many things can (and likely will, given our experience in Japan so far) go wrong. 

Questions are racing unchecked through my mind.......Will Annika like the idea of having a dog to help her?  Will the dog actually help her?  Will this just be a colossal waste of time and money?  How difficult will the Japanese government (and lets face it, our own government) make this experience?  Is this even possible (seriously, is it)?

With the official application, the serious business of this process begins.  Here is hoping that we can figure it out......