Charissa Graves
From the Graves
At the beginning of last week, I had my parents in my house, and by the time they were gone, there was a dog there instead.
For over a year now, I’ve been researching and trying to begin the process of acquiring and training a service dog. I already had a hard time picking things up off the ground—especially when it’s my cane that’s fallen down—and getting my spine fractured a couple of months ago has not improved that. On top of that, there are a couple of other symptoms that I deal with that really could be managed better.
I had a support system in California that I just don’t have here, or at least not yet. Now, I live with two seniors, so the help I can ask for when it comes to issues of mobility is rather limited. Don’t get me wrong, I am so appreciative of where I am now and the opportunities that I’ve had since moving here, but it’s definitely an adjustment.
I’ve been stubbornly independent my whole life, and it’s been one of my greatest assets as well as a significant detriment to my life. The earliest example that my family likes to pull out is from when I was just 3 years old. Apparently, I decided that I didn’t want to hold anyone’s hand while walking, and in the process of trying to extricate my hand I ended up launching myself off of a dock. My parents have never let me forget that.
It wasn’t until my health started declining that I really learned how to ask for help, and even that came with kicking and screaming. I’m still learning when the time is to power through, when the time is to ask for help, and how to be realistic about what I’m capable of and on what timeline.
Still, I did kind of get used to having people around. When I was home, my mom was such a huge help, and my friends have always been so quick to take care of me—even when I don’t ask for it. When I moved, all of that kind of disappeared, outside of sporadic visits.
Enter Radar, known as Lainey during her time at the Hutchinson Animal Shelter. I, like other members of my family, like to look at different animal shelter websites to see what kind of animals they have. Why my family does that is unclear, but as I said, I’ve been trying to start this process for a while now.
I had some loose criteria in mind, I was looking for a young dog—but not a puppy—and preferably one that was at least partially German shepherd (there are no breed restrictions on service dogs, so that was mostly personal preference). I also knew that I wanted it to come from a shelter, partially because I’ve seen the wait time and cost that comes with trying to work with service dog training organizations, but mostly because I firmly believe in the “adopt don’t shop” philosophy.
So, when I saw a 1-year-old German shepherd mix on the shelter’s website, I knew that I wanted to at least meet her. My grandparents weren’t the most keen on living with an animal, so I wasn’t expecting much to come of it, but still I brought my dad with me on Tuesday. If nothing else, I figured at least we would get to spend some time with a cute dog.
Something just clicked. I’ll admit that I always have been, and always will be, a sucker for a cute animal of any species. However, I can usually tell pretty quickly when I meet one that feels like “mine.” It’s like meeting someone for the first time and knowing immediately that they’ll have a massive impact on your life.
I brought my mom to the shelter on Saturday. By the time I went to bed that night, I filled out the application and we had gotten basically everything a dog could need. We went to church the next morning, planning to stop by the shelter and try to finalize the adoption as soon as the shelter opened that afternoon. I wasn’t sure how long online applications took to process, so I thought I’d call first and see if maybe it would be faster to fill one out in person. My family had agreed that it’d be helpful if they were there to get her moved in, and they had to leave for their flights home at around 6 p.m.
During that call, my heart dropped. Another family was in an appointment with her, and it was first-come, first-served. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t a good fit, and so for the last few days I’ve just been focused on making Radar feel safe at home. The real training can begin soon, and hopefully soon when family and friends visit I won’t have to rely on them as much because I’ll already have the help I need.
The name Radar is a manifestation of sorts, inspiration coming from the helpful corporal on M*A*S*H. I hope that as she gets older, she’ll be just as helpful, intuitive and loyal.