Who Rescued Who

When I first met Sheriff, I was told he was an Irish Wolfhound puppy…my dream dog.  Once I saw him, I knew this was not true.  However, I still felt drawn to him.  He was at the vet clinic for an adoption event…however not many people want a big, black dog.  I took him outside to let him run around and I sat down on an overturned 5 gallon bucket.  Instead of sniffing around, running, exploring, etc, Sheriff simply sat next to me and leaned against my legs.  For several minutes I simply pet him…each pet solidifying my interest in him.  After the adoption event, I asked if Sheriff could stay at the vet for a few weeks or so.  My first year anniversary with my boyfriend was coming up…I thought Sheriff would be an excellent gift.

When I took my boyfriend to meet Sheriff, he was no longer the calm, laid back dog I had originally met.  Even making eye contact with him caused him to urinate in fear.  Not a good sign.  Frankly, a horrible sign.  This dog had some serious issues.  The kennel workers told me that he was probably not far off from being euthanized.  Not only do people tend to avoid big, black dogs…they tend to avoid dogs that pee everywhere in a panic.  My boyfriend likely thought I was nuts for wanting this dog, but my mind was not changed.  Over the next couple weeks, we were allowed to take Sheriff to the local park.  He rode in the car great and his fears were not as severe once he was leashed and outside the kennel environment.  But, he was still a very fearful and under-socialized dog.

At one point, while I was at work at Petco, my boyfriend decided to bring Sheriff to Petco since my shift was ending soon.  At the same time, a local rescue was setting up for an adoption event.  One of the volunteers dropped a folded metal crate right next to Sheriff.  Sheriff was so startled that he backed out of his collar and took off running.  My boyfriend and three rescue volunteers took off after him.  They followed him across a very busy road and to the back of an ancient apartment complex…which ended with a drop-off about 8 feet down into the next shopping strip.  Sheriff paused long enough at that drop-off without leaping for my boyfriend to approach him and get him leashed again.  That experience really cemented the fact that this dog needed a lot of help.  I don’t know how I did it, but I convinced my boyfriend that we were his forever home…with my dog training knowledge, I could turn this dog around.

On January 31st, we officially adopted Sheriff.  We took him to our new apartment…where we were still unpacking.  I accidentally knocked a notebook off the back of the couch and onto the floor.  Sheriff’s response was to run in circles around the couch while peeing, and then into the bedroom to continue fearfully peeing while he hid behind the bed.  I added falling notebooks to a quickly growing list of things to desensitize him to.  Later, stepping on manholes, leaves blowing nearby, meeting new people, balloons, kids, loud noises, eye contact, and toys would be added to the list…as well as most of the day to day happenings in an apartment.  We tackled every item.  If making the manhole clang 100 times would help Sheriff no longer fear it…then I would make that manhole clang 100 times.  As the year progressed, Sheriff slowly started to become less fearful.  As his trust in me grew, I started adding obedience training.  As a dog trainer, I wanted his obedience to be solid.  He would be my evidence that I, as a dog trainer, could own a highly trained dog.  So we continued to desensitize and train.  It became more and more apparent that there was a loving, smart, and clownish dog hiding under all the problems.  I wanted to allow that dog to flourish.

Understand, I had no idea that I would ever need a service dog while all of this training was going on.  Never would I have adopted a dog with such severe anxiety and fear with the intention of using it as a working dog.  However, after a year and a half of owning Sheriff, I started looking for a private trainer familiar with service dogs.  In March 2009, I had suffered my first psychotic episode which resulted in an 11 day stay at the psychiatric hospital.  Often and repeatedly, I had to return to the hospital for various reasons.  I was having trouble stabilizing.  My boyfriend gave me the idea of using a Psychiatric Service Dog (PSD) and I pitched the idea to my psychiatrist.  She agreed, after reading the information I brought her, that such a dog would likely be very helpful to me.

Around June, I found that trainer.  By then, Sheriff’s fears were virtually non-existent.  His obedience was solid.  He was polite around strangers and other dogs.  He appeared to be willing to work.  All summer we worked on task training and public access training.  In the end, Sheriff took to it quickly and flourished even more now that he had a job to do.  It was like he had found his element.  Whenever I got out his service dog vest, he would literally jump for joy and wag his entire body.  He loved going into public with me and very quickly he learned how to do his tasks in response to my emotions.  Rarely did I need to ask him to complete a task…he was intuitive enough to do his tasks without direction simply by reading my body language.

Over time, it became evident that Sheriff and I had helped each other face our biggest fears.  I am quoted in the book  Two Plus Four Equals One as saying, “I began working with my dog when I realized that even though I had rescued him, he was ready to rescue me.”  This statement took on a mind of its own.  I tell people now that when I got Sheriff, I showed him that the world was not as scary as he thought it was.  In return, Sheriff shows me that the world is not as scary as I now think it is.  It became a question of “who rescued who,” in which I don’t think a definite answer can be found.  Perhaps I saved Sheriff from euthanasia.  I know he has saved my life on numerous occasions.  Now, my car is adorned with a paw print bumper sticker that states “Who Rescued Who?”  Recently, I bought a collar for him that also asks, “Who Rescued Who?”  It is our mantra.  We are a team and that phrase is what binds us.

Recently, Sheriff was needed to take a large role in helping me stay out of the hospital.  Every semester since 2009, I have been hospitalized at the beginning of the semester.  This semester, all the pieces started falling into place to indicate it was getting time to go to the hospital.  However, I saw the symptoms in time to give notice to my treatment team.  My caseworker, therapists, and team leader began seeing me nearly every day for about a week and a half.  Each one had their own theory about what was going wrong.  “You are starting to become psychotic.”  “You need to learn to handle stress better.”  “You don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables.”  “Your sleep pattern is wrong.”  They also had their own ideas of how to get me through this rough patch.  However, that didn’t work for me.  I didn’t want to simply use coping skills to wait out this critical time.  That, in my opinion, was not enough.  When I saw my nurse practitioner last Friday, he suggested that I probably needed to go to the hospital.  That was the final straw for me.  I sat in my car for about 5 minutes, thinking about giving up and just admitting myself.  Then I drove home.

I thought long and hard that evening about what I needed to do.  The reason why I was headed into crisis needed to be dealt with head on.  Using coping skills to simply ride it out was not working.  I felt that was a backwards approach.  I decided that the intense paranoia and anxiety I was feeling needed to be dealt with in a manner that eradicated them, not managed them.  Therefore, I took the weekend to get my head on straight.  I didn’t go anywhere without Sheriff, he was constantly at my side.  Using the skills I have learned through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I began to ignore the scary thoughts and the anxious thoughts.  I would replace them with more rational thoughts or simply not entertain a thought at all.  I felt like I was taking a fly swatter to the thoughts in my brain.  It was difficult.  I had to analyze my patterns of thought over and over to assess if they were healthy or not.  Most of the time they were not healthy.  I spent extra time with Sheriff at home, mostly using him for emotional support.  I brushed him extra long.  I sat on the floor with him and gave him a massage.  We worked on some maintenance training.  Through changing my thought patterns and spending time with Sheriff, I beat back the incoming crisis and instability.

By Monday, I was free.  My anxiety was down to a tolerable level…its usual level.  My paranoia was back to its normal level of disabling but not debilitating.  I could function again…and not just barely.  I was in higher spirits than usual.  I had beat back a hospitalization.  I had diverted a crisis.  I was free to live without the fear of an incoming bout of psychosis.  I had taken the skills I’d learned in therapy and used them to the degree that I was more mentally stable than I have been in a long time.  I cannot convey the idea of how empowering it feels to beat what seemed like an inevitable trip to the hospital just like it always occurs.

As usual, Sheriff (and myself) had rescued me.  “Who Rescued Who” continues to be our mantra because it is how Sheriff and I lead our lives.  I am there to rescue him should he ever need it and he works to rescue me on a daily basis.