The life of a therapy dog

The day before I "work" (note from editor: Ahnung volunteers as a therapy dog working with at-risk youth at The Lab, a program serving St. Paul Public schools) mom often takes me to Pampered Pooch Playground to see auntie Jenny for Spa Day ... ahhh, yes, a bath, massage, pedicure, blow dry and even some playtime with the other pooches. They love me so much at Pampered Pooch that I get to roam around and I even get to be a greeter at the front door as my puppy friends get dropped off for daycare. Auntie Jenny let mom come back so she could take some photos and a movie clip of me getting my bath :) I just LOVE getting a bath and auntie Jenny told mom that I am the best and the easiest dog to bathe and groom ... I can't understand why anyone wouldn't love it. Mom tells me it's important for me as a therapy dog to make sure that I am well groomed before I go to work volunteering with the kids. When I smell good and feel soft I get even more hugs.

Here I am after spa day giving my auntie Jenny a 'high five' to let her know I really appreciate her working on a Sunday so that I can be ready for work this morning. I got to hang out in the front and roam around the offices while waiting for auntie Laura who was coming so that I could try on my new therapy dog vest that she's making for me (thanks auntie Laura! you're the coolest!). I look so sharp in my bright orange vest and it's so comfy!! :) She's going to sew the letters onto my vest now and make a couple adjustments. When she's done I'll be able to go to work in style!!

This morning I get to go to The Lab and work with these awesome kids!! We're on week 4 of the "dog group". Our lesson plan for today is going to be "Go to your place" where mom and auntie Danielle will show the kids how Sharpie and I will go to our place (which is rug) and how they can teach that to us. It's important for these kids who can often get overwhelmed and not have a healthy outlet to know that there is a place they can go that will be a safe and happy place for them.

When I work I get these delicious treats. I've noticed that mom gives me a smaller portion for breakfast on days that I work because she knows i'm going to get lots of treats.

Anyway ... gotta run and get ready for work. It's snowing this morning so mom has to shovel before we leave. I told her I want a clear path for me to the car so I don't have to get all dirty!! :)

And if you want to watch a couple short movie clips of me at Spa Day check out the videos below. On the first one you'll see auntie Jenny showing off to mom that I'm so good about even getting my head wet.



Then on the second one i'm just soaking in the massage! Can't wait for when I get to go back again!



p.s. Oooops ... i wrote this blog post before mom got a call from school. Our session is being cancelled today because of the snow. Oh well, guess i'll just get to sleep all day. That's okay with me. Mom just better give me a snack since she fed me a light breakfast. We have another group tomorrow afternoon and another one on Wednesday, PLUS I have a big presentation Wednesday morning ... wow, I'm getting tired now thinking of all I have to do this week so I think i need to go take a nap now!

Historic play moment for me ...

Some of you probably know that I didn't know anything about this play thing when i got to the cities with mom back in November of 2008. My brother Mister kept trying to get me to play, and after about 8 months I finally learned how to play and mom caught in on video. You can watch it here.

Well, the other day when I was volunteering at The Lab again with mom, auntie Danielle and Sharpie and we were working with a great group of kids, I accepted Sharpie's invitation to play. He's tried to get me to play before but i've just ignored him. The other day I decided I wanted to play! I also learned how to play tug and Sharpie and I got to play tug. Even with no front teeth I was able to give the Sharpster a run for his money :) He's small, but boy he's pretty mighty!! :)

Mom says i've gotten a lot more playful and spunky since I arrived. It's taken me a little while to get really comfortable. After all i've been through, can you blame me??? That's why I love volunteering with the kids at The Lab. They understand what i've been through.

Canine Inspired Change - Join our Team!

I was able to join my mom and auntie Danielle at The Canine Coach on Saturday, 1/30, for the Canine Inspired Change Informational Session. Instead of a fee, Canine Coach was great and let us ask for donations for my rescuer Karen and Red Lake Rosie's Rescue! We raised $241 in cash/check donations and got lots of food and treats!

There were SOOO many people at the informational session. Mom tells me they had to close registration down and that there was close to 60 people there! WOW!! I'm so excited that there are so many people interested in learning more about how they can partner with their dogs to become an animal therapy team. Auntie Danielle shared information on the new class that's being offered by Canine Coach - Canine Inspired Change. It's a 5 week course. A pre-requisite is that you and your dog are a registered animal therapy (it can be with any of the national organizations .... like Delta Society or TDI). After you take the CIC course then you can join me and my mom (and auntie Danielle and Sharpie) in volunteering in the community. It's really cool ... we teach the kids at school about the ABCs of CIC and auntie Danielle has lesson plans developed. I even had a chance to be a "demo" dog at the informational session when auntie Danielle showed the audience how we begin each group.

If you want to learn more about how to become an animal therapy team or if you want to learn more about the Canine Inspired Change course, you can email auntie Danielle at danielle@thek9coach.com.

Remembering Shadow ...

Mom has been going through old journals ... before I got lucky and landed in her home, she had a dog named Shadow. She rescued Shadow from the country streets of Owasso, Oklahoma .. he was starving, cuts all over him and she soon discovered a gun shot wound that pierced his ear, shattered and left lead in his skull. Shadow suffered from seizures for the first couple years. He was always petrified of loud noises and especially fireworks. He hated July 4th as it would bring back horrible memories for him. Mom lost Shen to spleen cancer on September 15, 2006. Then on July 2, 2007, she lost Shadow to intestinal cancer.

She wrote the following in her journal on July 5, 2006:

"Dear Shadow,

I am so sorry that fireworks scare you. I am sorry that they send shivers through your body. That fear runs through your veins, trapped in the complex web of life. At the sound of the fireworks it's as if there is a raging river inside of you, and you are drowning. We try to throw a life jacket for you to hold onto, but so caught up in fear, you flail, causing yourself to sink further into the raging river that has ripped you from the comfort of your bed. I am just glad that this fear does not cause you to have a seizure. It's been a while since you've had a seizure. If you were to ever have a seizure again I would feel fear rush through my veins, like you have felt it.

I will always love you my sweet little boy. I am so sorry for what you have to go through. If I could take the fear away I would. I hope you know I will always be here for you. Some July 4th you will no longer be with us, and I will look back on the years we had you, and the sleepless nights of trying to hold you and calm your spirit, and my heart will ache for one more July 4th."

For a month (in June, 2007) after mom was told Shadow had intestinal cancer and he was dying she slept with him on the couch downstairs so she could let him outside and comfort him and attend to his needs. She asked him to let her know when it was time for her to let him go. In the early morning of July 2nd, 2007, Shadow let her know. For the first time ever, he dug a small hole by the ashes of mom's previous animals, and burrowed his body in the hole. In that moment, mom knew, it was time. Shadow did not want to go through another July 4th.

Mom created a video in honor of Shadow ... to celebrate his glorious life. She still misses him. I tell her, Shadow is still with her and will always be in her heart, just as I am always in her heart. Click here to watch the video celebrating Shadow's life.

Spay. Neuter. Adopt

"Until all have homes ... Spay. Neuter. Adopt"

When I was found by my rescuer Karen Good of Red Lake Rosie's Rescue in October 2008 I had just had a litter of 8 puppies. I can't even count how many litters of puppies I had before I was rescued. Now when I volunteer with my mom as we do animal assisted education and intervention work with kids, we go through this exercise where we pretend i was never rescued and that I continue to have puppies. It's a fun math exercise for the kids. It's fun now that I can use my experience as a tool to help educate. But let me tell you, it wasn't fun having litter after litter. I am so grateful that I will never have to have anymore puppies. They are cute and they are cuddly, but too many of my friends already need homes. And my mom shares that with the kids. The kids learn quickly how one unspayed female dog/cat can multiply. The kids go through this spay/neuter math exercise and learn that at the end of two years I would have been responsible for an additional 572 dogs!!! Yes, little ole me would've contributed an additional 572 dogs to the pet overpopulation crisis we already have.

Official diagnosis

So my mom took me to the specialist yesterday to remove the stitches in my ear and to learn more about the details of the results of my biopsy. My official diagnosis is "chronic granulomatous and necrotizing dermatitis with epidermal ulceration and serocellular crusting." Wow! Isn't that a mouthful!! The specialist translated it to my mom (and to me)! Essentially, she said some of my cells are dying. As they looked the various layers of my skin/tissue (or dermis) she said it showed first inflammation, then hemorrhaging then eventually dying. They weren't able to see any cancer cells or any living organisms other than secondary bacterial infection. She said she has seen granulomatous but has never seen it isolated to the ears or a particular area. She admitted this is the first time she has seen anything like this. So the the not so good news is that they still don't really know what's causing the bumps on my ear. The doctor did say she thinks that there's something going on with my immune system. The plan for now is to keep me on this one of kind antibiotics to see if it helps. I'll be on it for 2 more weeks. If that doesn't help then she wants to try another antibiotic. And if that doesn't work then we need to discuss some other possible next steps, including steroids (which mom isn't too thrilled about!).

For now, it doesn't bother me and I don't mind my cute little cauliflower ears :) The kids I work with don't mind it either. Yesterday while volunteering at The Lab with this great group of 3 kids, I got lots of hugs. I showed them that I now know how to "high five" which they really liked! This one kid said I smelled good and that my coat was so shiny! [Many thanks to Pampered Pooch Playground and auntie Jenny for letting me come in for Spa Day on Sunday]. A couple of the kids also got to carry my pal Sharpie .... me??? i'm a little too big for them to carry!

And don't forget! If you want to learn more about what it takes to become a Pet Partner team so you can join Sharpie and myself in the volunteer work we do in the community, sign up for the informational session this coming Saturday, 1/30 from 1 - 2 PM. For more info you can check out the Pet Haven blog.

Expressive Ears

For those of you that have been following my blog (and maybe my mom's) ... you'll know that I have had these crazy lumps/bumps on my ear that the doctors couldn't figure out what it was ... something they've never seen before is what one doctor said. Then I went to a specialist and said it could possibly be an autoimmune disorder or maybe even some form of cancer. I think it was stumping people that it's ONLY on my ears. They sort of look like cauliflower ears :) Well, I had a biopsy last week and mom just heard back. The great news is that it's not cancer or some autoimmune disorder. They put some fancy long name to it which mom will learn more when we go for our follow up next week. All I know is that I will get to keep my expressive ears because who knows what they would've done if it was cancer!!

So to celebrate the great news I thought i'd share with you some of my photos with my various expressive looks!! :)