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Today I realized I felt safe again. I can't put full weight on my right leg due to an injury to my knee last week. I lost my pain management care 3 months ago, which means I don't have access to valuable medications that help me function & recover each day. I don't have a doctor right now, at all. I don't know if my care plan will ever return to normal. This week I have to prove I'm too severely impaired to be able to fulfill a jury summons. Christmas reminds me of Robbie, and him not being here. I've been holding on by a thread for months. And yet, sitting on the porch just now, feeling the warm breeze, the sun on my face, the piercing pain in my right kneecap, I feel completely safe. Finally, and again. Robbie's job was to keep me safe from the CRPS and how my environment made the CRPS worse. Robbie brought my husband peace of mind to leave me alone, because with Robbie's assistance, I was able to function with the daily normal, and overcome problems as they arose. I fell less, and when I did fall, Robbie got me up and to someplace safe. Last year, on a snowy walk with Robbie, one of my ice grippers fell off my boot. To put it back on, I had to sit in the middle of an snow-covered dirt road, pull it on, and ponder how to get back up, as Robbie was technically retired. He wouldn't have it. He stood by me, then stamped his feet at me and huffed. No response. He side stepped closer, stamped his feet, and huffed again, this time throwing in a glare. I accepted the brace offer. The huffing and stamping stopped, replaced by a tail wag, and we walked home. Robbie knew his job. He was good at his job. His job helped me function with the CRPS, and helped me feel safe. Safe to live with CRPS and truly believe I was gonna be okay. My service dog & I would find a way to make it happen. Retiring Robbie shattered that feeling of safety. He was retired for medical reasons that made it unsafe for him to keep working. To keep him safe and prolong his wellbeing, I needed to be less safe for a while. Less safe, less functional, and in worse pain. He was a stubborn helper dog, though, and when he could tell I desperately needed assistance, he often wouldn't take no for an answer. Like on the snow walk. He couldn't help, shouldn't help, but he was there. And if he decided he needed to, he demanded I let him help. The last morning I held Robbie in my arms, looking into his tired eyes, knowing it was likely the end, any last fragment of safety I felt was destroyed. As he drifted away, the magnitude of his presence drifted away too. I don't know if anyone really understood what I loss that day. I felt cold, alone, and very much not safe. Wisps of feeling safe again have come in moments over the past 6 months. When I got disoriented on a field walk, in the days following losing Robbie, and I conversationally said to Austin, "Let's go back to Adam," forgetting momentarily I hadn't trained that yet, but it being ingrained to rely on Robbie, and Austin promptly changed directions and guided me back to Adam with confidence. When I fell on a walk, landing in a ditch, while being passed by a too-close Amish cart, and looked up to see Austin standing calmly in front of me. Both of us safely out of the road, him waiting for a brace cue. Even before that, the first time I fell with Austin was 5 days into his training, and his automatic response was to lick and nose nudge my face until I responded to him, and then to promptly lay down close beside me, looking outward while my husband checked on me. And today. Each step with my right leg feels like it will buckle and I will fall, but I haven't. Austin has learned to tell when I'm limping, and to automatically walk closely beside me whether he has gear on or not. In the house, he's helping with a lightweight harness as we walk carefully from room to room. He's moving with care and gentleness for short training or playtime sessions. When we stop and I don't give a follow up cue, he waits patiently, watching me. If I try to walk without him, he watches more closely, ready to arbitrarily break a command and come assist me when he sees it's needed. He chooses to be on the dog bed closest to me, instead of in his favorite spot. He braced to help me pull on my bibs for going outside, and looked up at me the second I winced from a sudden pain spike in my kneecap, then nudged my face to ask if I was okay. He played Find Toy outside, off leash, for the first time near-perfectly, even with me sitting down. I believe he knew we both needed that to work smoothly. He followed closely to get me to the porch where I sat for playtime. After playtime, we sat outside for a bit, enjoying the warmth. Looking out over the landscape, I breathed it all in. That's when it hit me. "I feel safe again." Austin was laying in the grass a few feet from me, serenely surveying his surroundings, his ears focused on me. The way he was laying, he gave off an overwhelming presence of a calm confident, guardian, ready to respond to the call for help. That's how Robbie was. I realized, while we have more yet to polish and learn, that all our hard work has delivered. Once more I have a confidence assistance animal, ready to help, skilled enough to figure it out in the moment even if all the pieces aren't there, aware of the need for his assistance, and actively working to keep me safe while I live with CRPS. After a time, Austin braced to help me stand up from the porch steps, without gear on (not easy). Going back inside, he chose to walk closely beside me the entire way as I limped, pausing when I paused. He stood very still for me to slide out of my bibs, even when my foot got stuck and I started to panic a bit because being stuck made the bibs pull on my injured knee. He waited as I washed my hands, and paused each time I wasn't right beside him. Only once I was back in bed resting did he curl up on a blanket nearby and relax. Being able to function while disabled by CRPS is huge. Being able to function while disabled by CRPS and dealing with an extra injury affecting my mobility, with only the assistance of a dog, is extra incredible. Working with a service dog to manage my disability on a daily basis is the best and most versatile management tool we have. Austin's assistance is invaluable.
Today I was able to step back and take in the whole picture beyond all the fires burning lately, to see that Austin has finally reached the point where he knows his job, he knows he's needed, and he is a partner I can trust and rely on. “This is crazy. I tell people not to do this. But – I’ve got a good feeling about him. And he’s the right size, and from what we’ve gathered he checks all the boxes. And how he immediately came to me to check me out when I sat down… I don’t know. We’ve come a long way and he could be gone by the time we ponder it over.” And that’s how I ended up riding home with a 76lb sack of fur on my lap named Austin, one year ago, on September 15, 2021. (By the way, seriously don’t recommend it, I could barely breathe). The first year is a whirlwind. It’s stressful, intense, lots of ups and downs and back and forth on, “Did we make the right choice”, “nope I can’t do this”, and finally smooths out into, “okay, I’ve got this.” I should know. I've done it twice now. Dive in with me on an overview of our first year with Austin. Exactly one month ago, I lost my best friend and partner for the past 7 years. He left us suddenly, leaving me with echoes of his presence, feeling as if half of me had evaporated over night. Robbie gave me exactly what I needed, when I needed it, and more. Much more than I ever could have expected. Writing this post has taken time to find the right words, time to write without crumbling, time to paint the right picture of Robbie as he was. Time for me to be able to look back and smile. For inspiration, I went back to our training journals that I kept diligently for most of his career. Robbie was fully trained in his primary tasks and obedience work by December 2015, but he and I kept growing as a team, and as teacher and student for many more years. I continued to add on new skills as I learned more about dog training, and grew as a dog trainer, and listened to what Robbie had to teach me along the way. I added new tasks to his repertoire as my needs developed, and I discovered what he was truly capable of. Robbie was helping me learn right up until the week he passed away. I'd gotten new balance equipment, and was testing out different approaches for teaching both Robbie and Austin to use it. Trying out different things with Robbie helped me see the way forward to teaching Austin, and future dogs. One last gift.
Revisit the highlights of Robbie's life with us, as I share passages from his training journals and my own memories over the years. One aspect of training my second dog that I was definitely not prepared for was the reality of past, present, and future battling it out in my mind every time I pick up the leash. It's Day 20 with Austin, my service dog candidate. My friends and family keep checking in to ask how it's going. Honestly? It's like one of those rollercoasters that whips you around the track so fast you can barely see straight and right when you expect your body to continue in one direction, it gets hurtled in a random off shoot direction, and back again. It is wonderful, challenging, strenuous, painful, humorous, unrelenting, defeating, and exhausting. Owner-training a service dog when you're in pain and every mistake the dog makes causes a literal, painful consequence for you is immensely hard. And once you sign up, you're in it, every day. You wake up, do your best, make some wins, get beat up by an 80lb ball of fluff, go to bed, and do it all again. (if you watch Supernatural, my life is basically Tuesday right now) I know this. I did it. The proof of my capability is chilling nearby, silently judging the puppy oaf creature lying where he once did. I really thought training the second would be easier. In some ways, it is so far. In one particularly pesky way, though, it's complicatedly harder. SpinningHave you ever read a book where the author made the daunting choice to flit back and forth amongst past, present, and future character timelines, and throughout it, found yourself annoyed when they didn't make a point to tell you which was which? That's how I feel right now. Tired, annoyed, and occasionally confused. Each day I wake up, make coffee, get dressed, feed the rabbits, take the dogs out, and that's where the duality begins and refuses to end until it's the end of the day, my husband asks what I did and it's nothing but a blur of repetition and all I can say is, "Dogs. Things with dogs." Walks, training, playtime, triumphs, missteps, mini-CRPS traumas playing on repeat with dogs too alike and too unalike. Everything in between, and everything in double doses. My dumb self had to be drawn towards a dog who looked eerily similar to the first dog. Go me. I was bound to struggle anyway, but the dogs looking almost identical upon quick glance makes this way harder than my mind needs it to be. Each time I work with Robbie, memories swirl around me. Puppy Robbie having boundless energy, challenging us with each new ounce of freedom, and mouthing on us by pure accident of not closing his mouth when he played. The first time he got me up after a fall. All the times he caused a fall. What it felt like to work with him in public and know that no matter what, I was going to be okay that day. The joy of watching him work, and the grief of the day we retired. I can see his whole career in moving pictures flashing past my eyes every time I pick up the leash, every time I teach and pull from my experiences with him, every time Austin does something frustrating and Robbie is the shoulder I lean on for comfort. In my mind, Robbie is 3 or 5 again (our favorite years), and nothing is wrong, or extra challenging. I've just come back from walking him, and as he lowers himself onto the floor, I hear the groan, I see the way he slowly lowers himself instead of the hard hip plop of before, and the youthful black mask of memory fades into a grayed out senior who needs his shoulders iced. Invariably, halfway through, he starts wiggling, rolls himself onto his back, and wants snuggles while being iced. Young, old, green, and seasoned all in one. Each time I pick up the leash on Austin, my mind swirls. There's immediately tension on the line, put there by a bumbling puppy who has too much GO and not enough patience. In an instant, I can see the dog he is now, the dog he'll be in a year, and the dog he'll be when he's finished, working full time by my side faithfully, and Robbie is gone. My mind can't help but get drawn back to, "this is what we did with Robbie..." or "that's not how Robbie was..." My muscle memory has grown accustomed to how my hands and legs can communicate with Robbie in our own language, one of understanding and a sense of watchful concern. They expect Austin to remember what he hasn't learned yet, and I have to remind myself that Robbie isn't beside me, Austin is. I can see where Austin was, where he is now, and where he will be but isn't and won't be for a while yet. I feel like someone wandering through uncharted territory, constantly mistaking familiar landmarks for evidence of knowing where I am and where I'm going, only to turn a corner and see any ounce of familiarity blur into the distance again. I know the work I put into Robbie is why Robbie is who he is now, but even so I want Austin to get on the same page yesterday and get with the way of things. That's not how it works, but it's what I drift towards on the days when Austin takes more than I have to give or when I'm already spent and still asking myself for more. It was easier with Robbie. We could imagine what he would be like one day, but we didn't know. We lived in the present, occasionally looking upon the past to see that we were indeed moving forward. I thought knowing the path ahead of me would make this easier. I was wrong. Knowing is harder.
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My Name is Sally...I have a condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. This blog is about my journey training Robbie, a dog who helped me regain independence, confidence, and achieve the impossible in the face of my disability. It continues on with the training of Austin, Robbie's successor. Check Out... - "More than a Dog" was published on a site called The Mighty Categories
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