Amber

Eliza and Amber

The shadow of the looming brick building fell over me. I considered philosophically that it was not quite as imposing or frightening as the first time I had walked through its glass doors. The steady jingle of Amber's tags that proclaim her a service-dog-in-training buoyed my spirit. I glanced down. Sensing my attention she looked up, reassuring me with her need for my approval. I silently blessed her for the innumerable benefits her presence at school would afford me. Training service dogs has changed my life, though my family and I began raising them purely as a charity. The benefit for me was the self-confidence to assert myself in the face of authority. After a year, Amber was concluding her training with us and sometimes attended our local public high school. I had been home schooled previously, so this was my first experience at public high school. I was shy and uncertain in all social interactions. However, at the beginning of many days, my mom let me take Amber into morning assembly, ostensibly to socialize Amber, but, in fact, to give me something to talk about with the kids. Amber's presence acted as an icebreaker, affording me an unexpected benefit by making school more tolerable and giving me something to talk about, even when Amber was not with me in school. Because Amber went everywhere with us, I always had something to talk about, and the focus was on her, alleviating my self-consciousness. When I walked into a store with Amber, curious people surrounded me. As the handler, my responsibility was to let people know that she was a service dog; as we then understood the Vermont law at least, they are allowed in any public place. Managers and other officials sometimes had difficulties believing this, so I had to help them understand the law by showing them a copy of it and, politely, telling them they were wrong. The service dogs my family raises help physically challenged people. Service dogs open doors and press buttons either with noses and paws or by pulling a rope. Bigger dogs help pull wheelchairs up ramps. Small breeds of dogs, like Shitzhus, are trained to retrieve items off counters like pens. Service dogs for the deaf alert their masters to important noises, like an alarm or timer, with a nudge or a lick. My family raises service dogs as a community service. We expected nothing except the experience of raising a dog to help others. We never expected the host of benefits this experience would give us. Amber went back to NEADS (National Education for Assistance Dog Services), the program under which we were raising Amber. She went through further training and in time was matched with a man named Matthew. Cabot, the second dog we raised (and probably the most difficult), was a Smooth Coat Collie. I attributed his challenge to his breeding; Collies are herding breeds not given to calmly sleeping under the table as the Labradors would do. He was nervous in public and took far more socializing then the other service dogs. He also had a tendency to bark at anything different or just for attention; however, he did not readily learn the command "speak;" he did not understand that we wanted him to bark for what he saw as no reason. Still he was smart dog. In meetings, where he was meant to lie quietly, he would bark so that mom would hush him and, though she did not intend it, give him attention. With our NEADS trainer's support we eventually solved this problem. We used a spray bottle and briefly sprayed him with water, which he hated. Cabot learned to be quiet in meetings, and we learned that he was capable of outsmarting us. He eventually went on to be a service dog for a 16-year-old girl who had had a brain aneurysm. Meeting her was particularly touching because she was close to my age, and, though she could not talk, her love for Cabot was obvious. Her inability to communicate verbally forces her to rely on the help of her parents as interpreters. Because I too have had difficulties socially, I could guess at a shadow of her frustration. I hope Cabot has helped her find herself, as Amber helped me. Lucy was a bold yellow lab who tended to be rather silly. She was high-energy and kept us on our toes making sure she was not chewing something up or getting into other mischief. She was good with her paws, which we predicted would make her good for a physically disabled person. Her dexterity would allow her to pick up items as well as push buttons. Lucy's energy meant that she liked to pull; however, she responded well to the use of a training harness that puts pressure on the dog's chest to discourage pulling. Lucy had to be limited when playing with our own dog so she would not get too aggressive. The same was true with our tricky, teasy cat who loved to torment her by allowing her to chase him and then escape to an inaccessible location, preferably behind the couch. To add to her suffering he would bat at her nose from his haven. A service dog should not chase cats so Lucy had to be kept on a leash if she persisted in attempting to play with the cat. Lucy finished off her training with a brief stay in The Prison Pups Program, where high-level prisoners are allowed to train service dogs as part of their community service. Lucy then returned to NEADS and has been placed with an amputee. Lucy's person, Kathy, uses a wheelchair because of the loss of her leg. Lucy helped pull the wheelchair up ramps, and she opens doors. Lucy retrieves items including water bottles and dropped objects. She can also turn on and off light switches and push other buttons. Lucy's dexterity with nose and paws as well as her tendency to pull allowed her to become a fantastic service dog for an amputee though initially these characteristics appeared to be faults. Seeing these tendencies grow with training into useful abilities was satisfying for us. We only had Star for part of her training. The finite time we had to work with Star made it imperative that we socialize her as much as possible. We were less cautious about taking her places with us than we were with the other service dogs. Normally we wait until the dogs are solidly housebroken and obedient before taking them to meetings where they must sit quietly for an hour or more. Nevertheless, we took Star to meetings while she was still small enough to sleep in my lap, and she slept through many lectures with no difficulty. Star also learned to go canoeing with us, and more importantly, not to be excited or try and jump out of the boat. Star taught us that raising your expectations can be most rewarding and that we can be too conservative in our expectations. She spent the rest of her training in prison just as Lucy had before. With time and practice, her obedience commands will become solid. She will be returning to NEADS soon to finish her training. Now we have successfully raised four service dogs, and each one has had his or her difficulties and benefits. It is a rewarding experience. Each dog teaches us something new and has a special place in our hearts. Still we know that they are going out to help others, and we train them with that firmly in our minds. It is this selfless act of love and giving that, in contrast, makes the rewards of raising these dogs so gratifying.