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Molly was my first dog, a Labrador Retriever. She was whelped April 9, 1986, and is the product of breeding Tanglefoot's Chocolate Moose (dam) with Riverbend's Mr. T (sire). She was bred by Pat Day of Tanglefoot Kennels in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Her full (registered) name is TFS Gd Golly Miss Molly CD. She has all of her minor points for a show championship but retired from the ring when her hip dysplasia was diagnosed and she was spayed.
She's a classic example of "no guarantees" even when both parents are OFA-certified "good" or better. Which is not to diminish the need for responsible breeding (both parents hips certified). She's just a fluke--one of those things that can happen. She's also had cruciate ligament repair surgery, which she tolerated well. Right after it was done, we called her "Franken-leg".
Annie is Molly's dog, a black Labrador Retriever. She was whelped October 1, 1989, and is the product of a backyard breeding. I say "Molly's dog" because one of the main reasons I even considered another dog was to keep Molly company while I was at work.
Her full (registered) name is WYSIWYGS Round Midnight but she's never been shown. She's just not show quality. She is, of course, spayed. Ironically, her hips are fine. The vet who did the x-rays opined that she'd be "OFA Excellent" easily.
Of the two, she's the one who came to stay with me while I was doing my out-patient rehab at Patricia Neal Rehab Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. During my stay there, I became acquainted with a therapy-animal program called "HABIT" (which stands for Human-Animal Bond in Tennessee).
Every Monday evening, HABIT volunteers would bring their dogs to my hospital room for a visit. I can recall the anticipation of "HABIT night"! Finally, I was introduced to the other part of the HABIT program--Quimby, a lab-golden mix (she looked like a black lab) would come help with my speech therapy--by talking to her and giving her commands, I was working on my speech.
When I finally went from in-patient to out-patient status at Patricia Neal, I went to stay with my parents and Annie, the smaller of my labs, came to be with me. We didn't get a lot of training done (although we did do some), but we got a lot of socializing done!
I returned to my home in Georgia in the fall of '93, and started back to college in the fall of '94. In spite of rehabilitation, the viral encephalitis had left me with mobility problems. I returned to college by getting around campus on an electric scooter. By my last couple of quarters, I was getting around better--to the point that I felt like, if I had a dog or something to help stabilize me, I could probably walk. Now, the thing about encephalitis-related disabilities is that while the rehabilitation is slow, progress is slow and steady. So, while I'd entered Patricia Neal as a quadriplegic, I had, through years of work, made it to the point that I could drive, do limited walking, and live independently. I figured my mobility problems would pass just the same way, and for that reason, thought I'd need a service dog for two years at most. For that length of time, I didn't want to apply for a service dog somewhere--heck, I had 2 labs at home. If I could train one of them to do service work, then when I didn't need a SD anymore, she could go back to being a pet. So started the search for training so Annie could be my SD. After lots of nos--"We only train our own dogs"--and one "leave her with us for a year", Pat Gonser introduced me to Pets & People: Companions in Therapy and Service and the idea of self-training. So Annie and I trained and refined what she already knew, and over the Fourth of July weekend in 1996, we presented ourselves at Meridian to get (we thought) an Access Card (lets one take a SD in training in places like a SD, so one can finish the "public" part of training). Annie did so well over the course of the weekend, we got our certification instead.
She accompanied me to class at Mississippi State University, where I'm doing graduate work, for 1 and 1/2 years, until being an old dog just finally got to be too much. I'm using my Chesapeake for class now, but I hope Annie will be able to graduate with me in the Spring!
"Just A Pet" Essay
Click & Treat(tm)
(clicker training)
Rainbow Bridge
