There was a touching story on the television here last night about assistance dogs for children. They said that it costs on average 25,000 AUD to train an assistance dog here.
If I find the story online here I'll post it. Was excellent and touching and I certainly would donate to this cause.

[Found the Assistance Dogs Australia site and they say cost is approx. 20,000 AUD. Just thought I should post that correction. They also say they only have 180 in service in all of Australia. That's pretty small number when you think about it.]