my a-door-able dog

When my own dog died I decided to join a sponsorship scheme that trains dogs to help people with various disabilities - they’re known as ‘assistance dogs’.  

My latest sponsor dog is a Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retriever - honestly - that’s name of the breed.  I worry that he's posting offensive messages about Canadian wildfowl on Kennel-Book.

Any way - he’s just successfully qualified from dog school and is about the change the life of someone by doing a lot of the everyday tasks that this person finds difficult - carrying, fetching, helping with shopping and so on - thereby enabling his new owner to lead an independent life.  

It takes about 2 years to train such a dog and not all make the grade.  Halfway through the training of my previous sponsor dog, it became clear that he had a bit of an attitude problem.  One day, when learning how to open a washing machine door, he just stopped and lay down on the floor.  No amount of coaxing or treats would get him to continue.  In the words of his trainer “he just couldn’t be bothered”.

Expelled from dog school, I thought about him on the streets with no job, no home, sniffing for handouts …. 

But this story does have a happy ending.  His skill at dossing around and doing nothing has been put to good use.  He is now the companion dog of a young boy with Austism - all the dog has to do is to lay on the boy’s bedroom floor and allow himself to be cuddled and stroked.  Which he does quite happily.  The boy’s family report a dramatic and positive transformation in all their lives, since the dog came to live with them.   

Which all goes to show that we shouldn’t write-off people who can’t quite manage modern life for some reason or other - nor should we write-off school dropouts.

I have my own assistance dog.  His job is to hold doors open, which he does remarkably well.


ps.  Thank you all for your good wishes yesterday.