TL:DR: For my birthday, I would love help paying for/off my incredible new service dog, who is already absolutely stunning for my health, both mental and physical.

Hey, all.

Some of you might have seen posts on the social meds recently about me getting a new dog, and wondered, “What the heck, I thought she already had a dog… and isn’t that the same dog?!” Well, to clarify: yes, I did (have a dog previously); and no, it’s not (the same dog… they just look A LOT alike). ;-D

Here’s the story, delivered as concisely as I (a well-known wordy mofo ;-P) can possibly make it. ;-)

Most of you probably know that in August of 2020, my then-partner and I took in a dog, Sultan. He was 18 mos old at the time and suffering from neglect trauma, and we put an incredible amount of time, energy, effort, and money into rehabilitating him into a truly fantastic family member. If you’ve ever met him, you know that he’s aggressively *friendly*, definitely a cuddler/lap dog, and one of the great loves of my life.

Sultan made me realize how having a dog with me the majority of the time is actually critical to my mental health, stability, and well-being. I am overall *vastly* more regulated, calmer, and more balanced as a human. Since my ADHD diagnosis in late 2023, and some inklings that I might have spectrum-leanings on top of that (apparently most ADHDers do), I’ve learned even more about how a service dog can be a critical tool in things like occupying one’s hands, and bringing you back into the present moment when overwhelm starts to elevate your pulse and heart-rate. This is not *at all* to say that dysregulation doesn’t still creep in (or overwhelm me suddenly and unexpectedly), but having an animal around that will alert me to early signs, and that I can stim and seek comfort with, helps me *massively,* and leads to MUCH faster and more effective re-regulation.

Also, in the last few years, I’ve been noticing a drastic increase in episodic dizziness, shakiness, and physical instability and dissociation (often associated with the beginnings of an anxiety/panic attack or a severe blood sugar drop). I’ve been through a broad spectrum of practitioners and different medications to work toward inflammation reduction and dialing in what some additional diagnoses might turn out to be, and I’ve collected a few that are helping me get a clearer picture of the physical/mental landscape. But it’s a long road, and the journey is far from over, which is why I had also started to consider training Sultan for some physical/mobility-related tasks as well.

Well, life and humans being what they are, circumstances need to shift sometimes, and when that shift included the relationship between the two humans in this equation dissolving, I had a deep conversation with the trainers Sultan and I were working with at the time, Katie and Malichi (Dauntless_Dogs on Insta and FB, and generally amazing humans <3). I asked if Sultan (who can be dog-reactive and non-awesome with younger kiddos, and with whom they’d worked a couple of times already) was the right long-term prospect as a service dog for me, or if I would be better served by getting a younger dog and training more from “scratch,” as it were. I had thought Katie would advocate for me to work through Sultan’s foibles and try to make him the dog I thought he could be, but she surprised me by saying she actually felt that a different dog would be a better option, and that, while Sultan is absolutely exceptional in SO many ways, getting those last few things dialed in could take a while, and he’s already 5.

So the decision was made all around that Sultan would stay with his “dad,” and continue to be The Best Boi™ as an incredibly well-trained and -behaved pet and companion.

But then, I needed to look for another dog… this time one that could be trained for some more specific tasks, and who would be calmer around dogs and kids. Thus began much research and discussion of breeder vs. rescue, the ideal age to start training, and the many — MANY — messages between myself, Katie, and Mal on everything from temperament to coat color [turns out brindles are my absolute kryptonite. Who knew?! ;-D ] to breed-specific traits, and all points between and around the subject of service dogs.

Then one day in early November, Mal and I were exchanging some messages, and he said, “What I think you really need is a Dutch Shepherd, and I actually think I know the right dog for you… In fact, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

This led me to Lylia, a friend and colleague of Katie and Mal’s, and Sinji, her service dog. She had rehabbed him starting at 10 months old, after he’d been bullied by a larger dog with whom he was in a kennel run for a few months. Sinji is now 2, and had been working for almost a year as her service animal, doing blood pressure and heart rate alerting, and Deep Pressure Therapy — the *exact* things I was looking to train a service dog to do! She was devastated that it wasn’t working out to keep him, but he is a dog who wants to be with his handler pretty much 24/7, and she, being a trainer of other people’s service dogs, sometimes needed to leave him at home or at the training facility for a few hours a day to go work with said other dogs. He was starting to have a hard time being away from her, and there are always so many dogs at the facility in various stages of puppyhood, training, and bark-regulation, which can be not-awesome for him given his history of bullying by his kennel-mate… And although she very much did not want to, she determined that getting him placed with a handler who would be dedicated just to him, and him to them — with fewer rowdy tween puppies constantly up in his grill — would be so much better for his overall well-being.

So, in early November, she and I were introduced via Katie and Mal’s business partner and Lylia’s boss at the time, Patrick, and we had a lengthy phone call where we discussed pretty much everything I’ve just talked about here, but in far more detail, and for much longer… if you can possibly fathom that. After that first call, we were both pretty excited, and had an idea that Sinji and I might be a decent fit. But… we still needed to meet to determine whether we would actually be a good team. My dad referred to this assessment-of-dogs-phase as sort of like “doggie dating,” so this kinda felt like a bit of a blind date, in a way — simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying!

What if he didn’t like me?

What if (extremely unlikely, but an outside possibility…) I didn’t like him?

What if we got all the way home and just couldn’t make it work, for whatever reason?

My brilliant father had also suggested that I send some clothing ahead, so he could get familiar with my scent (the dog, not my dad ); this is something my dad has done, to great effect, with the last two dogs he’s gotten from a good friend who breeds English Labs in the South. So I wore the same clothes on my runs for a few days in a row, so they’d be nice and sweaty and have lots of “me” on them, and then I sealed them up in a lovely fresh ziplock, and my folks dropped them in the mail to WI while I was traveling in CA in early December. Lylia sent me pictures of him wearing my t-shirt, and lying on the blanket I’d sent, and said he hadn’t moved from that spot all day and she was now convinced he was waiting for me to arrive. I very nearly cried.

On December 17th (Two months ago *today*! Wow, it feels like we’ve been together for much longer ), after flying on a red-eye for 4 hours, napping at an incredible friend’s house in Chicago, then getting picked up by Lylia and her fiance Andy and driving for almost 2 more hours…

Sinji and I finally met.

He was a little standoffish at first, so it was a slow-ish greeting process, which I had honestly expected. But he warmed up to me fairly quickly (something I’m learning is not actually super common for him), and after a very short while, we were playing fetch and he was feeling comfortable enough to come nudge my hand for pets and treats. All four of us (Sinji, Lylia, Andy, and myself) went back to my Airbnb to kick it for a while, so he could have some familiar people around in a new and unfamiliar environment. He hung out with me overnight that night, and I learned almost immediately that he is one of the most epic cuddlers I’ve ever met, human or canine!

We worked with Lylia for two days, getting me acclimated to his training and doing some adjustment with his commands to suit my own needs. It was a little difficult while we were there, because he’d been working for Lylia for so long, he was very confused about who he was supposed to be listening and paying attention to when we were trying to work all together. That would be confusing for any dog, but even in those first few days, he was already starting to be more attentive to me, and we definitely made great progress in figuring out how to communicate together.

On December 19th, we got on his first ever flight and made our way to his new home.

As with any new relationship, there are ups and downs, processes of acclimation and trust-building, and sticky spots to work through. Such has definitely been the case with us, but overall, even from the start, we’ve been pretty comfortable with each other, and our bond is only growing day by day.

We’re currently working through increasing comfort in public settings, where there are often overwhelming, and sometimes surprising, sounds, people, objects, animals, etc. A lot of that has to do with him just building trust that I, as his handler, am trustworthy, and won’t put him in a situation he can’t handle. So we’re continuing to build our relationship, and he’s becoming more and more comfortable in an increasing number of new places and with new people.

And y’all… It’s been almost exactly two months since we MET, and we’re already making massive progress and learning new things together.

And omfg his training is SO good. Even when he’s overstimulated and stressed out, he still listens to me, checks in, and stays close.

At this point, I am absolutely convinced that we will make an incredible, life-long team, and that in 6 months we could be practically bulletproof.

Having some financial help in paying Lylia more quickly for her incredible work with him, then with me, would be extremely valuable. I’d love to be able to contribute to her getting her new training business set up ASAP so she can continue to make people’s dog-dreams come true.

If you’ve gotten this far, WOW, good job! I’m impressed, and thanks for reading our story.

If you can help with a donation, no matter how big or small, THANK YOU. If you can boost or share this post or campaign, THANK YOU! If you can do BOTH, *THANK YOU!!!*

I’m so grateful for all the incredible people in my life who have been so wildly supportive through all my many ups, downs, and in-betweens. Thank you for being part of my incredible community and extended-/chosen-Family.

Love you all.