My Story (Abridged)I was a freshman in college, studying to become a professional horse trainer & horse photographer. My first semester in college, I had my arm twisted behind my back by a troubled horse. The pain was EXCRUCIATING! A few days later my hand started turning blue & going cold. I was diagnosed with "minor nerve damage" that would go away in 6-8 weeks. That was 8 years ago. It has since taken over my life.
4 years into the pain, I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). It is a condition that affects your sympathetic and central nervous systems and alters the way that they function. My brain constantly misinterprets pain signals, and other signals that aren't pain signals, and tells my body that I am in severe pain & in great danger. It is basically pain signal overload with a side of adrenaline. I live in constant severe pain. My lowest pain ever is an 8/10 on the pain scale. My pain is full body. The pain is burning, stabbing, dull, throbbing, crushed bones feeling, muscle spasms, electric shocks, lightning bolts through me, and flaming porcupines covering my body. The best description is "imagine you are soaked in gasoline & lit on fire & told to carry out daily activities with no one being able to see the flames." In 4 years, I saw 14 doctors, all who eventually told me that there was nothing more they could do for me. We had either exhausted all options available or all that they were willing to do. I cannot work a traditional job due to the pain. I wanted & needed a service dog to regain some of my former independence & feel confident in my abilities again. This is what I could do for myself, after being failed by traditional medicine over & over. |
Robbie's StoryRobbie was a great dane/belgian malinois cross (our best guess based on appearance & personality characteristics). He was fawn colored with a black mask & a black stripe down his tail. He was about 1yr old when we first met him.
When he was about 6-8 weeks old, He was abandoned in a yard. Someone found him and took him to the Dogwood Animal Shelter in Osage Beach, MO. He grew up there. While there, he was adopted 2x, but returned within 14 days each time because he was a handful. Robbie was housed there for about a year before he was chosen to join Missouri's Puppies for Parole Program. This is a program where shelter dogs from all over Missouri go to various correctional centers in the state & are trained by offenders so that there is a better chance of the dogs being adopted. Plus, it can help the offenders get jobs once out of prison. Robbie was with the program for about two and half months. When he first joined, he was a nightmare. Jumping up on people, pulling on the leash, chewing on objects, not house or crate trained, and not very trusting. He did pass his initial behavioral evaluation done by the program, which showed that underneath his lack of training, he was a stable-minded dog. After 13 weeks in the program, he became a model citizen. The offenders taught him basic obedience, crate & house trained him, & showed him he could trust people. They would even take him to local mental hospitals and nursing homes to visit the patients there. He was everyone's favorite dog. Sweet, well-behaved, and very friendly. |
How We MetWhen Robbie was ready to graduate from the program, they listed him on their page of adoptable dogs. I found him amongst 30 other dogs.
I had started to lose hope that I would ever find the right dog, and was just calling any number for any dog that met our criteria. Dogwood Shelter was one of the shelters I called. When I asked about Robbie, and said I was looking for a dog that I could train to be a service dog, the woman I spoke to was more than happy to tell me about Robbie and seemed confident he would be perfect. I gave her a list of questions to ask the program supervisor, and the three of us began emailing back and forth. The more I heard about Robbie, the more I felt he was the right dog. In early February, my boyfriend & I decided to go meet Robbie in person. Our trainer could not go with us, but gave us a list of key questions to ask. Robbie met about 95% of our criteria. He was a little uncertain of us when he first met us, but was very friendly and polite. I got a chance to walk him & he was pretty good. Not pulling too much and sticking with me. It felt right. We called our trainer right after & discussed it with him. He said that it sounded like we had found the "perfect dog." On February 26th, 2015 we picked Robbie up from the correctional center. We had adopted & paid for him a few days before, directly from the shelter. We took him to our trainer, who did an evaluation of him & loved what he saw in Robbie. Robbie was a stroke of luck, and definitely the right dog for us. He & I made a great team! |
Our Next Chapter
Robbie retired from service dog duties in July 2021. In September 2021, I began training a candidate to fill his role. Robbie is doing his best to cope with the change from active to retired, and is learning new things like how to bond with my husband and how to scent out deer antler sheds with me on field walks. To learn more about this decision, my search for a dog, and how training the newest addition to our pack is going, check out my newest blog post series, "The Next Chapter." You can also learn more about both Robbie and Austin under the "My Dogs" page.
Robbie passed away on May 22, 2022 due to a spleen tumor bursting. His legacy lives on through me, my work with Austin, this page, and Disabled Advantage. I would not be here if it were not for his dedication to his job and devotion to me.
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