Summer is Coming...

"Summer is Coming" are the words of THIS house. I really adore the gardening and hiking of summer, and the long hours outside, but with it comes a danger. This is the first summer I have where I think my diagnosis might be right. Previous years, we thought I had an adrenaline problem triggered by heat, but it's all the same in that I can't handle the heat. Thankfully, my super-amazing dog watches the temperature for me! I look forward to posting about how he does in the summer, especially with a full understanding of what he might be sensing. The previous two summers with him, I was working, and often came home to him while I was already drained. This is his first summer with me 24/7, and so far, I don't need the air conditioning unit in. The latest I've ever put it in was early May, because last year was so cold. It's been in the high 70s so far this year, and I've been fine. Thank DOG for that one, because it's a pain, since it doesn't really fit in the window properly.

I read THIS post on ruffly speaking, and it's amazingly excellent. It seems to be a mother and daughter with service animals for very different invisible conditions, and she does an incredible job in describing how service animals work, especially with a young child handling some of them. She describes how the dogs just drop in exhaustion after working, and I can relate to that. Nibbler is always on standby mode, and turns on depending on environment and my situation, rather than his vest. (I often worked him without his vest before I started using it like a purse.) That standby mode drains his battery, and he refuses to do more than doze until I'm safely asleep every night. It leaves him absolutely exhausted, and for a few months that I was doing very poorly, I thought he was dead at night because of how difficult it was to wake him.

Recently, he's been in one of his "hate" cycles where he'll grumble at everyone he sees. It's part of having a terrier, and needs some retraining. Any tips?

I Really Don't Like Assistance Dogs International...

This Story really, really bothers me. The US military is requiring service dog handlers in their service to have dogs only provided to them by certain organizations approved by Assistance Dogs International. This is blocking mentally wounded soldiers from dogs they NEED who do their JOBS. It doesn't matter where you get a dog or who trained it as long as it does its tasks properly. Sadly, it can cost upwards of $13,000 for a dog provided by an organization, as opposed to the under a thousand dollars getting a dog to train yourself can cost. Even private dog trainers charge less to help than the high rates "approved" organizations can charge. Seeing eye dogs arguably need the intensive training methods in a facility that ADI requires, but psychiatric dogs are much, much more easily trained. I got Nibbler when he was 8 months old and he was fully working for me and public access ready at a year old. Adara came to us at 3 months and was also ready around her first birthday.

I would fully support a dog being allowed on base only if the handler and dog could complete a public access test similar to what Psychdog has. Simple, basic tasks to prove the dog is fully trained and capable. Have every handler on base spend half an hour demonstrating the readiness of the dogs. Rules like this only serve to make the lives of disabled people HARDER.

Our soldiers with mental and physical injuries from war have already given enough for their country. Why make them give up their medically necessary dog because the "right" people didn't provide them? It's like getting brand-specific about a prosthetic leg.

ADI advocates training like the training given to guide dogs and other dogs who hold the handler's life 100% in their hands because they openly don't think that psychiatric dogs are "real" service dogs. It's the sort of elitism that makes it harder to have a service dog legitimately. If all service dog organizations would spend the time they set aside to trying to seem elitist (not all of them do this) and put it into educating the public, things would be a LOT easier. The ADA is explicit in what a service animal is, and what sort of tasks define a service animal. THESE are the guidelines to enforce and tell the public about, not some imaginary elitist ones.

Handler-trained dogs can do their job just as well as a program-trained dog. I want to know why ADI wants to put an unnecessary burden on the disabled unless we'll join THEIR club.