Dora
I
finally have a service dog! Her name is Dora, which means gift, and she truly
is a gift to me. I have been on the waiting list for a service dog for about a
year or so now. The service dog is an alert dog- she can pretty much give me a
few seconds warning before I fall. This is great, as it allows me to get to the
floor and such. She also stays with me until it is ok.
Though
I have been on the waiting list with an organization, Dora came to me through a
different route. The vet school located about 50 miles away trains dogs for
TSA/homeland security. Due to the fact that I am fainting more, my parents are
not getting younger, and other things, I thought I would call and see if there
were any dogs who might work as service dogs, but didn’t make the final TSA
cut. When I called, the person in charge told me that a lady who ran a service
dog organization was coming to look at dogs later that week, so I asked if I
could come too. He said sure.
As
soon as they brought Dora in, she came over to me, and I passed out ten seconds
later. This happened twice. The third time, Dora was across the room eating
treats. She stopped, perked up, and began running to me, by the time she got
there I was falling and she let me fall on her. After several people scraped
their jaws off the floor, one said, “I think we just found S’s dog.” I spoke to
the lady who ran the organization and she said it was pretty clear that Dora
was “mine”. She also gave me the name of several trainers.
I
picked her up on Monday and she has been doing great. She is a black lab and
very calm. She is good at alerting. She starts training on Sept 1 and I will go
up twice a week to train with her. I am so grateful to have her.
So
a new adventure begins.
