“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.
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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. Initially, the stress of fitting a new dog into established routines, learning how they communicate, what drives them or discourages them, and coping with - in my case, as someone living with CRPS - the enormous waves of pain accompanied by working with a dog who has no concept of your sensitivity can be tumultuous. It's normal to wonder if you made a mistake, if you can't do this, if this dog won't be the right fit. I asked myself numerous times in the past 3 months if we should return Austin, out of exhaustion and self-doubt, colored in with minor problems that kept popping up, which at the time, felt insurmountable. All totally normal. The first few months can be brutal. For that reason, it's important for everyone - dog and handler - to give the team 3 months to settle out and then take a step back to evaluate.
Is this a good fit? Are we on the right track? I have been putting off writing this. Partly because I want to keep this loss to myself, and partly because if I write it here, it's more real. More definite. But - anyone who reads this blog and who has followed my journey with Robbie should get to know even the difficult stuff. And I have no doubt that this post will find someone who has gone through this before, or will have to one day, and maybe it can help you. We've made the incredibly difficult decision to retire Robbie. He is 8 years old, has been with me for 7 years, but worked for 6 of those. In that time, he has prevented countless falls, gotten me off the ground more times than I could possibly ever count, retrieved items I dropped, opened doors I couldn't, pulled heavy things that would have been painful for me to pick up or pull, assisted with household chores like laundry, watched over me every day ready to jump in and help me, and much much more. Retiring him is an immense blow to my sense of normal, his sense of normal, and my CRPS management strategy overall. Robbie is one of those dogs who never shows pain or discomfort - he just keeps going. A lot like myself. When I found a bony protrusion on his chest a few weeks ago, I called the vet and made an appointment, worried he had hurt himself somehow. Scans revealed that he had indeed strained the tendons in both shoulders at some point in the spring, and not showing his pain, had worked through until they calcified and he began to lose the stamina to deal with it any longer. I hate that he managed to hurt himself and I never knew, but there was no way for me to know. Nothing dramatic had happened, he merely moved wrong during an activity. He now has the equivalent of chronic tendonitis, making it clear he can't do his job. The irony is that his joints are in excellent condition. That's what we'd been watching and figured would be the retirement sign; joints, not tendons. After consulting with a colleague, our vet recommended that Robbie be retired and I begin my search for my next dog to train and shape into a CRPS service dog for myself. The best we can do is give him NSAIDS, and give him a great retired life. I had noticed a few things beginning to show in the last month but didn't understand what they were until we got the vet's diagnosis. I assumed Robbie was beginning to slow down due to his age overall. After all - he has had more miles put on his body in his 8 years of life than a pet dog who mostly sleeps, walks, and plays. Every now and then, Brace wasn't as solid as it once was, but when I asked him to balance more evenly, he would. Public Access seemed to be more tiresome for him, as I'd catch him taking short naps more often and out of place. Getting in and out of our truck, was becoming harder, especially when we moved to a larger truck. Little things that fell into place when we realized what he was dealing with. I felt - I feel horrible that I didn't see it sooner or put the pieces together faster. Robbie is my first service dog, and my first senior dog, so I was flying blind on what to be looking out for. And every dog is different. Now I know. On what later became his last day of public access, he laid down in a bathroom stall. That was my sign from him that he needed to be done. Robbie's training included to always stand in bathrooms, for sanitary reasons, but primarily so that he would be ready to brace. He has never laid down in a bathroom, except for showers. For him to be in working gear, be in town, on-duty, and immediately lay down in the bathroom upon going inside, big red flag that something was not right. That was an hour or so before our vet appointment. Then it all made sense. Robbie will continue to do light task work at home, and will have the best possible farm dog life we can give him. Unfortunately, most of his tasks are too heavy for his shoulders to accommodate anymore. Already I can tell he is confused about the changes to his normal, and desperately wish there was a way to explain it to him. All of this has been incredibly hard on me, adapting to him not helping with flares or preventing them, coping with the loss of not having my partner with me in public anymore, and that weird loss of my partner being gone whilst still physically here. I am taking it one day, one minute at a time. We both are. I must start preparing for Robbie's successor and start searching. I am simultaneously excited about the prospect and feel like I'm dragging my feet. I don't want to move on, but I must for my health. This is one of the hardest parts of working with a service dog. This blog is not going away any time soon. I'm sure I'll have more to say as I work through Robbie's retirement, how I manage him, and I'll loop you guys in on how my search is going, and such like that. I started this site a year into working with Robbie, so I think it will be exciting and useful to people to read about the front end of looking for and selecting a successor. Thanks for reading and following our training journey!
Hi, everyone. When I first embarked on the journey of training my own service dog, people kept asking me if I would eventually do it as a job, and, at the time, I kept laughing it off. It's a ton of work! Time to eat my words. Thanks to the continued support from everyone who reads our blog or finds us on Facebook, as well as the strength, confidence, and independence Robbie has brought to my life, I have started my own service dog training and consulting business. You guys inspired me and encouraged me to see that there is a need for a trainer willing to work with owner-trainers to help them achieve their goal of training a mobility service dog. Even more importantly than that need (though that's pretty important), is the overwhelming need for a trainer who can specialize in assisting people with CRPS and other invisible disabilities. That's me. My business, Disabled Advantage Dog Training & Consulting, LLC, is a very small business where you will be guaranteed to get one-on-one, personalized training for owner-training a mobility service dog from the ground up, or jumping right into Service Dog specific training if you've already done obedience training without help (I will ask that you pass an obedience test I offer for me to gauge if your team is ready for my Service Dog training course). There are courses for pet owners, too, to teach home manners, develop a strong bond with your companion dog or emotional support dog, and be able to go on adventures together. For people first starting out, swimming in questions, I've got a range of consultations I offer to help you navigate through figuring out what tasks you need, if a service dog could help you, counseling for a loved one before you bring a service dog home, and more. For pet owners, I offer a consultation for helping you think through what kind of dog you want before you go to the shelter or adoption fair, and another one on how dogs think and learn, to best help you prepare for training your own dog. When I say very small, I mean it. At any given time, I may book several consultations, but plan to initially keep my active training client list to 1 - 3 people at a time to be able to give each client the guidance they need. I will have a training client waitlist, with varied wait times depending on current clients' timelines. This set up is engineered to best serve my clients, as well as to prevent overloading myself, as, I too, have a disability to consider. Working with clients does take a strain on my CRPS, particularly my jaw from talking, and that has to be taken into account. All of my training and consultations are done through Zoom conferencing. I made the decision to do Zoom teaching long before the Coronavirus - I started planning this business in 2017! - to reach a wider audience, accommodate my own disability, and accommodate the potential disabilities of my clients. Clients in the United States have access to any of my services, whereas International clients have access to consultations only, because training standards and regulations are different in other countries. I am sure a lot of people have Zoom fatigue, but I really hope you'll give my teaching style a shot! No longer will I have to tell you that there aren't any trainers that specialize in training CRPS service dogs. I do, I'm here, and the best part for you is that I get it. I know exactly what it is like to train a dog while living with CRPS. I'm here to help. I will teach you how to teach your dog. My training courses are methodical, and move slower than other trainers. That is because I firmly believe in building a solid foundation for a dog before asking them to do more challenging work, and to give adequate time for you, their handler, to learn the skills you need to teach a dog successfully. Some trainers glide over the basics like skipping a stone across a pond, and that's not my style. We break everything down, step by step, to be sure that you and your dog are on the same page and move forward together, in sync. I want your dog's Sit to be as rock solid as their ability to do tasks in a crowded place or accompany you on a routine trip to the pet store with ease. You might be wondering, How does Disabled Advantage change how My CRPS Service Dog can help people? Great question! Before the start of DADTC, I was able to answer any and all questions for free, no matter how in-depth I needed to go. I will still be answering questions through email or Facebook messenger, but there will be times when I recommend we move the conversation to my business page so that I can give you more in-depth, personalized responses to best help you. I'd help you pick out a consultation that best suited your original question, and we'd set up a time for it. Other times, questions might have quick answers, and those will stay free. Please keep asking me questions and reaching out for help, because I do want to help you. If you have CRPS, you can ask to join the CRPS Service Dogs group I run on Facebook, where you can be part of a CRPS service dog team community and ask questions, share accomplishments, and more. I will continue to write blog posts full of excellent information here, as well as other blog posts on my business page's blog. If you are interested in learning more about my business or what I offer, please go to my website! Or send me an email at [email protected]. I am keeping the same email for both business and this website, since they cross over. |
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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