Seizure & Psychiatric Alert Dog

I am looking to raise money for  an assistance dog (service dog) for my partner, who I have been caring for for the past seven years.

My partner has been diagnosed with Bipolar 1 - this shows itself in the form of major depressive episodes followed by extreme manic episodes. She has rapid cycling bipolar and hasn’t had a stable period for three years now. When depressed she lacks all motivation, considers herself worthless and struggles with suicidal ideation. When manic she doesn’t sleep, has no concept of safety, forgets to eat, tries to spend money, and has distorted thinking.

Alongside this she suffers from 24/7 psychosis, which presents in the form of auditory and visual hallucinations, and warped thinking. She sees extremely distressing things (eg. a child kneeling in the middle of the road when travelling in a car) and obviously to her the hallucinations are entirely real.

She has been diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Social situations make her anxious, even spending a few hours with a friend is often impossible. She is terrified of medical appts, professionals, supermarkets and other busy places, and public transport. Obviously her psychotic symptoms increases her discomfort and panic.

We desperately need a way to be able to manage appts, but after being let down by the NHS in numerous ways, it has left my partner absolutely terrified. Our last experience was six months ago, when we travelled to A&E to try seek help in a crisis, and after four hours waiting with no attention (which was making my partner's symptoms much worse), I checked us out at reception and decided we would be better off at home. We then received notification that the hospital had contacted the police telling them that my partner had escaped, she was a danger to herself, and there were patrols out searching for her with orders to bring her in for sectioning. This experience made my partner's fear 100x worse. With a trained service dog she could attend these crucial medical appts, from psychiatric appts to MRI/EEGs.

Finally my partner struggles with dissociation (which can present as blackouts) and she also has seizures. She typically experiences seizures daily, and can have as many as 15 a day. Not only are the seizures dangerous at the time, but they affect for many hours afterwards - sometimes after a big seizure she won't be functional for the rest of the day, and the next day will have no memories of any of it.

There are many many things that a trained service dog (/assistance dog) could do for my partner;

Seizure alert both in and outside the house, and guiding her to safe places
Providing focus, safety and comfort
Hallucination detection
Grounding
Behaviour interruption
Medication / mobile phone retrieval
Accompanying my partner to medical appts (she currently can’t attend appts due to her panic)
Being trained to block from strangers in public

And of course a dog that can accompany her everywhere (supermarkets, on transport etc) will be a HUGE help.

My partner is passionate about dog training and one of her favourite things is to work on training with our other dogs. Our oldest rescue dog now knows over 40 tricks, ranging from leg weaves to spin & twirl, and both the younger two have been trained all sorts.

We are so grateful for the donations we have already received, and are very thankful to everybody for taking the time to read this, share our campaign and even donate. 

**edited update** By asking for money owed by my partner's parents, we have managed to scrape enough to buy an absolutely amazing Standard Poodle puppy from a wonderful breeder.

All her Poodles are health tested, three of this puppy's immediate family are registered therapy dogs, and the puppy was already placed in a working role but returned due to allergies. We paid £800 for the puppy, and still obviously have all her assistance dog gear to buy (harnesses, capes, patches, ID etc), all her training sessions and transport there and back to pay for, and finally vet visits. Please keep sharing our campaign!**


We are working hard on training and socialising Sasha and she is doing SO well. We have attended our first puppy class and everyday we work on her training around distractions. We are so grateful to have her.



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