2004-02-26T10:25:00.000-08:00

Ruby
People often ask, how can you train a service dog and then give them up?
I received a call from Ohio. Don was distraught. His whole family was grieving. They had a giant schnoodle who they had to put down last week. Only 19 months old, she had a stroke or a brain aneurism, no one really knew, but suddenly she lost control of her back end. She couldn’t walk and lost control of her bowels. The only compassionate thing to do was to put her down. They had found my web site on the internet. They wanted to know if I had a giant schnoodle of Joy puppy. “No”, I told them, “but I have Ruby. The Crown Jewell.” I told them how Ruby, who is not my breeding, came to me as a rescue, from Washington state from someone who didn’t have time to train her and had crated her for 8 hours a day. I told them how I had started training her 2 months ago for service and now she could put on a service jacket and go into a grocery store with almost perfect focus. She would heel beside the shopping cart or electric scooter and sit while I shopped and not even sniff the produce. She did exactly what I trained her to do. She took her responsibilty very seriously and I told them how, when she came to me, she was very verbal and unhappy. I asked her what she wanted and she told me almost in words: “I want you to change my name (which I did) and I want to learn things that will make you tell me I’m a good dog”. So I spent 2 months training her. Ruby became a wonderful, happy dog. I so wanted Ruby to go into a home as a service dog. As it turned out, they had a 13 year old girl who is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair and crutches. But they had never considered a service dog. They just wanted a pet.
I asked the temperature in Ohio. About 0 degrees. The planes won’t ship live animals when the temperature is under 40 degrees. “is there any chance you could all come to San Diego?” I said without much optimism. “Ruby is well trained enough to put on a service jacket and travel back in the cabin of the plane as a service dog on training”. We will definitely consider it Don said. They would call me back. The next day, they called back and said the whole family would arrive in San Diego on Friday.
Friday was a typical sunny San Diego day. They all arrived: Don, Meliah, 16 year old Alise and 13 year old Melanie. They met Ruby and it was love at first sight. They took her to lunch while I worked in my office. When they returned, they reported that Ruby had behaved very well lying under the table at the In and Out hamburger stand. I worked with them for about 3 hours. I taught them her commands. I took them all for rides in the dog cart with Karma pulling. But what Melanie was most excited about was when I put a handle on Karma’s harness and Karma pulled Melanie in her wheelchair. Ruby wasn’t trained to pull yet, but they have a trainer in Ohio and Ruby would make an excellent wheelchair pulling dog. She is very strong and steady. She also does a good brace for getting up and has a great retrieve instinct for picking up items dropped from the wheelchair. I already had her trained in basic obedience for service: heel, sit, stay, don’t sniff in the supermarket etc. They began to see the possibilities. I could see a whole new world opening up for this family as they discovered the independence Melanie could have with a service dog. They talked about how Melanie hardly ever went into the family room because it is downstairs and although she can make it downstairs, she can’t carry both crutches. So she hardly ever goes downstairs. They were excited about the idea that Ruby could bring the crutch downstairs. I taught them how to give retrieve commands as we threw the ball for Ruby. And then how those commands could be transferred to a stick, a bigger stick and then the crutch. They planned to hire a trainer, so I suggested that the trainer would be able to teach Ruby how to distinguish and fetch different objects. After the 3 hour training, we were all exhausted. I gave them Ruby’s shot records as well as her evaluation and her ribbon from a mini match that Ruby had participated in the day before. I took some pictures of the whole family with Ruby. I said goodbye to Ruby. They piled into their rented car. Ruby went happily, totally focused on them, her tail in the air. Ruby never even looked back at me. But I heard her say very clearly: “This is my very own family now. I’m in the right place. This is where I’m supposed to be. I’m happy now. These are MY people. I own them!” She was totally happy. It was obvious. What surprised me, was my own feelings. She never even looked back at me and I wasn’t hurt or sad. I felt really good. I realized that I had given Ruby the greatest gift: The ability to please her people and thus to fit in and be truly loved. I learned there are many kinds of love. The love I gave Ruby was a love with boundaries. The boundaries were that I knew I would not, could not keep Ruby. I loved her. I gave her the skills so someone else could love her. I gave her the training she needed so that she would do well with another family. And I was able to give her up with the love that one feels when the one they love is truly happy. Its an unselfish love that I wasn’t aware of my capacity for. I got very close to Ruby living with her and training her every day for 2 months. But I didn’t give her the same privileges that I gave my dogs. She was never allowed on the bed. I petted her and kissed her nose, but I never hugged her or got on the floor with her. She was treated differently and we all knew it. She was loved, but she was here for a purpose. She was here to be trained and learn how to be socially acceptable. She was here to follow orders, learn who was the boss and to trust the boss. The bonding we did was a bonding with boundaries. Although I’ve placed plenty of rescue dogs, I don’t usually train them to this level for this length of time. And of course, she is a giant schnoodle of Joy, my breed! This was a very special dog and a very enlightening experience. This kind of love is the loving one enough to let her go and live in love.

Update: Ruby made it home on the plane to Ohio. She behaved perfectly. The airline crew, passengers and everyone loved her. She had her first experience with snow. Everyone is happy with Ruby. I’m very proud of her.

Loving and letting go-Ruby the Rescue dog