The other day I was doing my self care walk (AKA, the Daily Trudge) down by the lake near our house when a woman approached me and asked for help. She was from Missouri and was camping with her husband. We had thick Texas fog that morning and, under fog cover, someone had dumped six puppies right next to her travel trailer. The Missouri couple was leaving that morning, couldn’t take them, and they were worried about how the puppies would survive.
My husband and I have been talking about getting a dog for several months now. We thought it would be good for our son, Kai, who is six years old and has special needs. Kai is low functioning and disgnosed with Autism, PVL (periventricular leukomalacia), duplicate chromosome 16, sensory processing disorder, and developmental delays across the board. Animals always seem to gravitate toward Kai. It is like they know that he is different and they seem to take extra care with him. Kai generally ignores them but if they hang around long enough they might get rewarded with a brief touch or stroke.
Our daughter, who is eight years old and neurotypical, likes animals but is also somewhat nervous around them. She would benefit from having a dog, too.
So I called my husband and adult son and asked them to come down and have a look. I also saw some women fishing nearby and invited them to come check out the puppies and see if they wanted one.
The women took two of the puppies, our adult daughter and son-in-law took two to their house and suddenly, with little to no preparation, we had not one but two puppies. On my husband’s birthday.
Thus begins the saga of Penny and Gus.
I have been trying to write this post for three days. Why haven’t I finished it yet?
Penny and Gus.
Because it’s important, when you are a stay-at-home mom with a child with special needs, a grandchild under the age of one living in the house and a still sick from a long term illness but recovering husband to add in untrained puppies.
And yet…
Penny and Gus are a catahoula and lab mix. This means they are smart, quick to learn, loyal, faithful, and good with small children. And catahoulas are used to herd cows. Which means that they can be taught to assist Kai.
Having looked in the past at organizations that provide service dogs, I know that I may be choosing a harder road than letting the professionals handle it. But it also doesn’t come with the fifteen thousand dollar price tag. These organizations suggest that you do fundraisers to get this money. I know that they probably provide a valuable service and all of the training and care are probably very expensive, so that amount, on some level makes sense.
We are learning how to train them from YouTube. They were given flea pills, spray and baths the first day. The second day we brought them to the vet. They’ve had shots, nails trimmed and they have been deemed healthy. Soon we will have puppy classes to train both them and us. And we will have them fixed. This is costing several hundred dollars but nowhere near the price of a formal service dog organization. The dogs may not be trained to their fullest potential. But they will be trained for what we will need them for with Kai. Kai will have their friendship and bond with them. It will help ease his anxiety to have pets near. They will hopefully be trained to stay with him if he elopes and keep him out of water and off of the road. And for us, that is enough. If someone needed service dogs that detected seizures coming on or to act in medical situations, I wouldn’t recommend the do-it-yourself method. But, for us, it will work just fine.
You know the old adage, when the universe hands you lemons, make lemonade? The universe just handed us the perfect puppies.
We’re making service dogs.