Dora the Service Dog

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.