Pleasant Surprise

[Hedgewitch]

My family and I have been displaced from our home as we had a large amount of water damage which caused mold. We have lived for a few weeks in a hotel. This past week we took all three of our girls to Northern NY to a dog show as Rani was competing, and my husband and I had a few seminars to take. Rani was also going to take her adult temperament test at this time.

At one point my husband had Rani with him and I was off where I could still be seen by them but out of ear shot. I was not in my wheel chair but on my feet. I was having such a good time talking with dog people I was not paying attention to how long I was on my feet. I was also on a much higher dose of meds since I was not staying on my own home and not noticing pain, as I would have.

Just two months earlier, I had decided to stop training Rani as a mobility service dog as an alternate for Mali as she was not noticing my balance issues and had at times caused me to come close to falling. My husband came up to me twice and told me to go sit down as Rani would not stop alerting to me. I frowned not understanding what he was talking about as my mind was on my conversations with my friend I hardly ever get to see, but after the second time I went behind a canopy where she could not see me and sat down to continue talking.

Not three minutes later my husband and Rani cam running around the corner, leaving his seminar for the third time. My husband defiantly angry with me. "Can't you see she is alerting to the fact you are over doing it and are out of your chair!" He tosses me her lead and storms back to the seminar.

This is the beginning of the week of Rani medically alerting to me for almost every step I take. Yes I know my foot is swollen, and my sugar is off, and I should be in my chair more... did I mention I had Mali with me too? I had told her she was on vacation and let people take her and play with her and only had to deal with her medical alerting when she was with me. Two cold dog noses sliding wetly all over me can be yucky!

We have been back one day now and I have a slight cold with a touch of inner ear fluid which is making me dizzy. I told my husband this and to listen for me while I shower. While I was in the shower this morning sitting on the chair washing my hair I did not know I had an audience. When all the soap was gone from my eyes I opened them to see one dog at each end of the shower curtain. There was water all over the floor. My husband was there with a mop, mopping it up. Both girls had decided I needed to be watched closer than my husband was watching me.

Rani is still very young and perhaps with age she will still be able to learn what is needed to be a mobility service dog as well as a medical alert dog.