Service Dogs

I thought I'd share about my DD21's service dog. Not as a recommendation, but a light-hearted story.

My daughter's mental illness emerged in high school (BPD, depression, anxiety, autism), and at that point my idea was that she would transition to college and "get over it". I guess I thought it was high school angst she would outgrow. It wasn't.

So when she said she wanted a service dog the summer before college I was against it. It would stigmatize her, and add complications to her life. When I asked her why she wanted one, she said it would give her a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I think she feared her depression would immobilize her if she didn't have a purpose. I couldn't say no to that.

So we got a service dog, a border collie mix, and joined a fairly expensive training program. That dog was a bad choice, it was the wrong breed. He is a super empathetic dog, but just wigs out when it sees a squirrel or small dog, it just loses it's mind. Which would drive my daughter's anxiety up, which would drive the dog's anxiety up. No one was happy.

So, daughter said she wanted a second dog. That drove my anxiety up! In the end we gave her our golden retriever puppy, which we got with the idea he could be a backup dog for our daughter. But we had bonded, and especially my wife was heart broken to give him up.

So now daughter has two service dogs. Well, the border collie is retired and doesn't do public access, but certainly provides in-home emotional support. And the golden does public access and goes everywhere with her.

It's been a good thing. It does give my daughter's life structure. They are still in training, and that provides some social interactions for her as well.

The other day the golden was bothering me. It kept nudging my arm like it wanted to be pet. I said to daughter "what's up with this guy", and she said "are you scratching yourself?" I was, I had a little itchy scab on my wrist. That dog was interrupting what it saw as self-harming behavior! My daughter used to have bleeding scabs all over her wrists from aggressive scratching and they were gone, and I realized she had trained the dog to stop her from doing that. Amazing. She's trained them to touch on command, and to lay on her, make eye contact, all of which gives her emotional support.

We've basically never had a problem with having the dog in public. People are very supportive. It doesn't hurt that the dogs are beautiful.

They do add complications (and expense) to life. It gets overwhelming with the pets we already have and her dogs in addition when daughter visits. And the collie wants to kill my cats (or maybe love them to death), either way it's a hassle. And there is dog hair everywhere, always.

I asked daughter what the best and worst parts of the dogs were. She said the worst part was they are annoying and she wants to kill them sometimes. The best was that she loves them and can't imagine life without them. Which is interesting, it's exactly how I feel about her

But it's hard to say they haven't been worth it.

So ... that's my story.



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