#Service dog stories

[rabidwerewolfie]

Sutter Cain is Special

So, because I love bragging about my beautiful baby boy, I am going to do so again!!

After a VERY busy day, Sutter Cain, Debbie and I went out to lunch at a semi-local hot spot. While we were there Sutter Cain was allowed to be "on Call" which means technically he's off duty for his service work, but if I need him to task, he will.

She said she's seen us around town before and she's a service dog trainer and she was impressed with how good my boy behaves when he's on duty.

Unfortunately, she ALSO had a dog with her that Sutter Cain very badly wanted to go sniff and I was having trouble getting his focus off of said other dog. He wasn't acting crazy, but he wasn't listening very well and would not stop staring.

The trainer suggested an ecollar, as if I didn't know about them, and I politely accepted the suggestion, but I don't want to use one. I am VERY well aware of them, how to use them and how they function, I'm not some brand new dog owner. But since she didn't know me or what I do or do not know, I didn't feel like discussing the issue.

Anyway, once she and her dog finally went away, I did some Focus work with Sutter Cain and he did beautiful. Stared me right in the eye until I released him. I even had Debbie do stuff to distract him and he gave her a glance, but then ignored her and I was so proud.

I know exactly what I need TO get him over his reactivity (NOT aggression, he's never actually aggressive, he just has an intense need to go greet other dogs and that's my mistake, I socialized him wrong as a puppy) I just don't have the resources to do it.

Anyway, he was SO good today, and other than that brief moment of misbehavior, he did GREAT today, and the fact that his good behavior was noticed made me even MORE proud of my baby boy.

Honestly, he is as close to perfection as you could ever expect out of a dog. Who could possibly ask for more?

[stinkrascal]

heel, boy

[codenamesazanka]

Although HeroAca's ethics are conscientious, we can also see a glimpse of modern dangers. At least as far as the developments to date are concerned, it seems that at the base of the work lies naive nationalism and a lack of imagination toward the situation in which official authority expands in the name of "justice." However, this nationalism seems to have an inclusive character, just like the nationalism of nationhood, which is another hidden basis of "Shounen Jump Values." As a fusion with such nationalism, we may be able to see in HeroAca the aspect of a higher level of community ethics that is relativistic and individualistic, yet aware of responsibility to "others." However, according to Karatani's logic, nationalism, which is a "(insular) community" way of thinking, should be in conflict with "(broad) social" thinking. Perhaps in the case of nationalism as a nationhood founded on universal ideals and principles, it does not actually contradict "social" thinking.

Still, it is important to note that even such nationalism is always in danger of slipping into exclusionary logic when a crisis occurs. Although HeroAca clearly denounce dictators, it does not have the imagination to understand that historically, bureaucrats/civil servants were the means by which rulers carry out their rule, so the current positioning of Heroes is a status that could support movements such as the state control of society that occurred in Japan in the late 1930s (fascism). [HeroAca fails to show enough wariness towards social control by public authorities.]

...

In that sense, if Heroes are imagined as an entity rooted in the network of "Hero Agencies" in the story and its spiritual ethics are depicted as maintaining a healthy tension with the state, then its ethics may be considered to be truly "social."

Nihilism and ethic in Shōnen Manga as romanticism : "Attack on Titan" and "My Hero Academia", Anna Eto, 2018

(translated by me)

[grecoromanyaoi]

i hate how half this posts on this website r 'u shouldnt exist in public if u do ppl should b allowed to kill u' n the other half r 'its good u do literally anything n everything u want in public n if anyone has anything to say abt it they should b killed' like idk man i think its more complicated than that. i think that sometimes it depends.

[8irdies]

long time without news for you! i got a puppy that i am training to be my service dog for autism and mobility. i love her but puppies are also A Lot, so i’m stressed and exhausted.

anyways her name is lavender! she’s half certified labradoodle and half lab+german shepherd+a whole ton of things. we did temperament testing on her and the others that were available and she’s the best pup for the job!

[all-that-jazz-93]

Hey remember that dog I took care of for a few weeks last year before I got caught by building management and had to give her up?

Well her owner needed to rehome her for good, and I got my therapist to write a letter recommending Maggie as a therapy dog to help with my ADHD. The dream team is back together!

You can follow us on Instagram to see what we're up to.

[simsdaughters]

Happy disability pride month !

From your local anemic bbygirl

[purplesaline]

Easiest

Puppy

Ever

When he's bored he goes to fins something to chew on, then brings it back to where I am and sits or lays against me to chew it. Once he's bored of that he'll go look for something different to chew and brings it back, and on and on.

And the boy has a bladder the size of Texas! He went nearly 12 hours without peeing and only went then because I woke him up and dragged him outside. Unfortunately I didn't wait long enough and a little while after we were back inside he went over to his crate and pooped on the towels in there (which made for very easy cleanup), then went for another 8 hours without asking to pee and I took him out again.

Now I know why his sister struggles with excitement peeing. Parker took some of her share of bladder!

[gar-a-ash]

Now that he's ten weeks old I tested his reaction to the cane. I think he's going to do just fine :)

[rubyintheskywithdiamonds]

One of my residents rescued a lil baby raccoon and we are all desperately trying not to let our leadership find out while they call animal shelters and such to find a place to take her bc our leadership will flipppp.

They named her Lil Bit 😭 she’s the cutest thing ever 😭 she crawled onto my shoulder and nestled herself there.

(Let me know if you guys want a picture of her)

[rabidwerewolfie]

Another Day In Paradise

I went to Money Tree today with Sutter Cain. Put his boots on because it was hot. We did nothing out of the ordinary. I got a few items, bought him a hoola hoop, at one point I dropped a little plastic bucket and I asked him to pick it up for me because I was hurting too much to bend over. It's one of his tasks, so he did it just fine. Some lady saw him do it and about went crazy cooing over him. I thought that was amusing but par for the course, so to speak. Thought nothing of it beyond that. I get to the register and the cashier doesn't see him. She starts gushing about this "big beautiful white shepherd" and "her" boots. Then I get told what a good owner "she" must have to care for that dog so much. So I go "Yeah, I saw him." And I can barely keep myself from laughing at her surprise. She couldn't help herself from coming out from behind the register to look at him one more time. For all the downsides of having to rely on a service dog, and there are many, it's the little moments that really make up for them. And of COURSE I take care of my baby. If I didn't, how could he take care of me?

[zargontari]

Joe kneels beside him to look at the cat, but does not outstretch his hand to try and touch her. Skippy's fingers continue their strained, gentle back and forth over the animal's ears. "You don't like cats," he eventually says, without looking. He did not have to turn his head to know it was the Colonel. Who else would sit with him like this? Of course it's Joe. The cat, who had stilled momentarily at the sound of his voice — still rough, but smoothing with time, just as the rest of him — tilts her head back to butt against the palm of his hand. Demanding, he thinks.

The shelter is quiet at this hour; those who come often wander in during the early afternoon hours, rather than thirty minutes to closing. Other animals pace their enclosures. Some are large, others small; some loud, some only silently glaring from the corners of their kennels at the two men. They range wildly in breed, the names of which he had never bothered to store to long term memory, and as such had been long forgotten with everything else. They are mostly young beasts. With the exception of one, they are all whole.

All except for this one. A stray, the tag on her door had claimed. Likely the rugged survivor of a dog fight, or a some tangle with a coyote. Regardless of origin, the effect is obvious: the fawn-colored cat, likely middle aged but the exact number unknown, looks as though she had been run straight through at some point of her life. Starting at the top of her head, only a jagged piece of her right ear had been left. The marring continued down to her shoulder, and the severed stub of her right foreleg. The animal's one golden eye seems to stare right through Skippy as he carefully runs his fingers over the old wound. She does not appear to care. The damage, such and clear as it is, does not hinder her, the little tag had read. Don't let her scary face fool you: She still has lots of love to give!

"I don't hate cats," Joe says from behind him, and it makes him stiffen for only a second to hear a voice where he'd forgotten a person was, at the same speed at which he thought.

Then he has to smile, very small and fragile, and just to himself. "You do," he replies. "Your mother had a cat, and the cat hated you. You retaliated by hating all cats, because, as your diary said at the time, your mother liked the cat more than she loved you, and would have rather sold you than the animal if you had raised a fuss." There is a nip at the outer edge of his palm, just a graze of teeth really, as he ghosts over the cat's scar and she redirects his attention. He moves his hand beneath her chin without complaint.

Joe only sighs; a heavy, burdened sound that he no longer flinches at. "Do I want to know how you know anything about my diary at the time?"

"I was only guessing about the diary, Joe." Truthfully, he only vaguely remembers knowing about the animal that Joe hated so dearly that it infected his relationship with every animal of the same breed. It is like a memory of a memory; a window that you just can only barely see through. It's all there, somewhere, of course. He carries his dying matrix behind him like a corpse. But he will never touch it again, and that is something he is finally begining to become okay with. "It was easy enough to extrapolate."

"Extrapolate," Joe mutters, as if the word itself is an insult to all humans, but especially him. "You know what? I don't care. You've seen the inside of my underwear drawer; I don't think I have any really big secrets that you don't know about."

"Likely not," but he isn't paying attention. The cat is purring. This is the first time he has ever heard a cat purr, besides in videos that he cannot recall and does not try to. It sounds rough, like a grating sound, like she's still trying to figure out how to do it. Skippy remembers pulling sound from his own new throat as if ripping them out, and thinks that he can relate, and also thinks this is that empathy shit again, isn't it?

Still. She is a broken thing— or she was broken, and she has fixed herself. Or, not fixed, but she has learned to live with what she cannot change. She has come into her own, despite the damage. Alone and cold and hurt and scared, she survived.

For some reason, that makes him feel a little bit better about his own survival. It feels a little less pointless, knowing that he is not the only thing that lived just because it wanted to; that he is not alone in a life without much purpose other than seeing the next sunrise.

(He takes her home. Of course he does.)

[orxna]

;Headcanon

Orana's service dog, Celene's primary tasks are psychiatric she breaks Orana out of harmful repetitive loops she gets stuck in such as picking at her nailbeds or pacing until she exhausts herself. Celene also applies grounding pressure when Orana disassociates and will block others from approaching during such episodes.

She does have a few mobility tasks mostly to do with physically stabilizing Orana when she loses balance since it's harder for her to catch herself with just one arm. Her commands are pretty standard obedience commands along with a few specific to her tasks.

even tho you shouldn't use most sight hounds for stability tasks but this is fiction and she's mostly a sight hound for the Aesthetic but honestly there's magically bred dogs in thedas like the mabari so lets just say she's a similarly magically developed breed.

[danniswrites]

Aki, My Service Dog

He is missed!

I'm sad that my ex supported this pet shop by buying not one, but 3 dogs, one for his parents and one for his sister. The other two did not live to the 13 years Aki did, but his brother was overfed. We follow our vet's recommendations and make sure we see an hourglass when we look down on our furbabies.

ASPCA.org is a very good source of reliable info. So many pet sites are not. If you are dying to get a thoroughbred dog, here's some tips: If you want a healthy dog, get a mutt.

You can go to AKC.org and read through the breeds, and nearly all of them have some sort of genetic defect. Some can be expensive. A reliable breeder will be AKC registered, not some other registry. They will be concerned about parentage and how healthy previous litters, and the parents' litters were. That's what you should be paying for. Good lineage. Backyard breeders don't care what they're breeding to what. You are better off going to a shelter or rescue site and adopt a rescue. No, you don't know lineage, but you can get the pet with the look you want, and feel good about getting a pet that would have been put down. About a quarter of rescues are thoroughbreds, just without the papers. Aki, even though he had AKC papers, was a rescue. He was terribly overpriced, and my ex was ripped off.

He was a puppy mill dog. There was no question that we wanted to keep him, even though the papers gave us a year to return him. We loved him, and he gave us love all his life long. Pet shops know very few people will return a dog once he leaves the store, so they keep making money that way. Backyard breeders offer comparatively cheap dogs and cats of a certain breed. They just buy two, probably from a pet shop, and breed them. They are out to make money. Breeders who register with AKC are usually in it for the good of that breed, going to dog shows and learning all they can about genetics. If a litter has a bad result, they don't breed that animal again. They are careful to let Mom rest well between litters and don't breed her every time she comes into heat. Good veterinary care is vital, as most thoroughbreds need help during delivery, though not all. It's an expensive hobby. Even with what they charge for pups, even 'pet quality' pups that can't be shown, they rarely make a profit. We got one of the few AKC breeders just in it for money. She probably only got $10-20 for each pup. She probably had a farm with lots of Moms only handled to get shots. Most of the pups probably died on the torturous truck ride from MO to GA, as do most pet shop animals. Truck drivers may or may not check on the animals they carry, on this days-long journey. The truck might not be air-conditioned. It is my hope you will adopt from a shelter or rescue. Or, from a reputable AKC breeder who loves and cares for the Moms who have the puppies. Most, the vast majority, do.

Pictures of Aki as a puppy, and his transformation after his first haircut, is on Imgur https://imgur.com/a/EauOmW0

[em-the-nem]

Me after walking my friend through taking a few deep breaths and giving them a hug so they could go back to what they were working on without getting overwhelmed:

"....is it me? Am.... Am I the service dog?? "

[asdpawprint]

I've talked before about how lucky I got that my service dog, a rescue mutt who didn't start training until almost 4 years old, is able to do even the bare minimum I need for the job. And that I look forward to the Future Dog who will be much better suited and set up for success from the beginning.

Soon, my family and I will be traveling for half a week. We will be traveling by plane, staying in a hotel, and visiting a very big city. All situations that are extremely difficult for me.

My service dog is not coming with us.

I made this decision myself, for many reasons:

He's never been on a plane.

He's never been in or near an airport.

He's never been in or near a big city.

I'm not nearly capable of putting on a brave face to give him good first experiences with these situations.

He's never worked longer than 3 hours in a day.

He's never held a settle longer than 2 hours.

He doesn't potty on cue.

He hates pottying away from his yard.

He's never gone potty on anything but outdoor grass, except accidents during potty training 6 years ago.

He doesn't travel well (mostly bc of the pottying away from home issues).

The trip is not far enough in the future to schedule a field trip with his trainer to teach him these skills (and I don't even know if that's a service they offer).

He's 6.5 years old and not a fast learner. Big brand new things like these would be too much to ask of him.

Every one of these reasons could've been avoided if he'd been prepared from a young age:

Include a potty cue during potty training.

Socialization and exposure to city environments.

Field trips with a trainer for plane rides.

I plan to prepare Future Dog for these situations, but my current dog is not. So, despise my need for help, I will go without, just as I did before my dog was trained. I will have my stim toys and earplugs and a comfort object, and my parents as my "service humans", but I will not have by far the most helpful accommodation: my service dog.

I make this decision entirely for his benefit, despite the consequences I will suffer, because it is what's best for him.

I don't have the imaginary Perfect Service Dog, or even the realistic Excellent Service Dog who was set up for success all its life. I have my middle aged rescue mutt, who stepped up to the best of his ability when I asked him to. For that, I am lucky, and so grateful, even when I dream of Future Dog.