My very first service dog

#15991
Luckymcurran
Participant

My very first service dog came from the humain society and was a german shepherd/pit bull mix. i worked at the hs and heard that he was found in a cage ment for a medium sized dog. he was literally not able to stand or turn around. he had burns on his paws from standing in his own fecies and urin. they evaluated him and found him to be human agressive,dog agressive,food agressive and agressive to anything else he could possibly be agressive to. well he was imediatly sentenced to death. I could not let that happen. I have worked with pit bulls for many years and wanted to try and change his luck. he had been abused for the first two years of his life i wanted to give him a second chance. I took him home and put a muzzle on him for my saftey and my other pit bulls saftey. I started working with him teaching him that people are ok and that dogs are ok. that its ok for someone to touch him while he is eating or even put their hands in his bowl while he is eating. I got him a vest that says service dog in training and started taking him everywhere with me to help socilize him. it took about 3 years but i was able to get him to trust everyone and everything. i taught him everything a dog needs to know to be a service dog. when i ws done training him he knew 231 commands and hand signals. he passed his canine good scitizen test and therapy dog test. he also passed his public access test which is required to be certified as a service dog. I had him officially certified as a service dog in october of 07. he worked with me as my partner for 2 years untill his trained responce to my condition cost him his life. He was trained to go get help if i had a panic attack and blacked out. well i was exiting my local mall when i froze up at the sight of a man that reminded me of the man who traumitized me when i was 10. he immediatly went into action looking for help. he did not see through the tinted windows of the mall doors so he looked into the parking lot. he spotted someone and started to run to them. out of no where a 16 year old new driver struck him. he was killed instantly.