Month: April 2016

Training with Mavis

Cass3 Comments

Week 2

This week my little Mavis will be 14 weeks and will have been living with us for 8 weeks! She’s been in training for 2 weeks using Training Your Own Service Dog by  Lelah Sullivan and AKA Shana Cohen. For those who don’t know, Mave is my service dog in training and she is doing incredibly well for her age. After we complete Sullivan’s and Cohen’s book, we will be using a training manual from Service Dog Express. Hopefully once both guides are finished, Mave will be in tip top shape. If not, I have local training organizations willing to help out with basic obedience training. Service Dog Express can also provide further training and instruction via webcam. SDE (located in San Antonio) can evaluate Mavis with a final walk through, after her training, to see if she is ready for the Public Access Test and become a Service Dog! I wanted to start a series of posts dedicated to my tiny terror’s (oh the wonderful puppy stages!) training progress. I’m hoping to help others in their journey to training a service dog of their own and how to go about getting started and what options they can choose.

Out and About working on Mav’s focus
At the Library. Exposing her to different places for commands.
Here’s Mav focusing for her reward.

First of all, I am not a liscensed trainer, but I consider myself a dog expert. I have lived with multiple dogs my entire life, worked in the veterinary field for about two years, and continue to work as a dog behavior analyst as a doggy daycare attendant (which is much more hands on then you’d think). Anyways, I know quite a bit about dog behavior and health which has set me up with the perfect platform to training my dog. I have looked into the alternatives of having a service dog pre-trained and ready, but the cons (for me personally) outweighed the pros. First of all the wait is up to a year or more to be matched with a service dog. Furthermore, the price of a trained service dog is anywhere from $1,200-2,000 and upwards. Another reason I didn’t choose this option is because you really have to be hands on when training a psychiatric service dog because they need to get you and your moods. Your ups, your downs, your triggers. This, in itself, takes persistence, time, and a close bond.

We started the intensive training on April 14th, 2016 and have learned Focus (keeping her eyes on me all the time), Touch (hoping that she’ll use this to alert), and are now working on Blanket (having her lie down on a blanket) commands. Technically it was recommended that the Service Dog Express manual begin at 6 months of age, but we are getting a jump start with Sullivan’s and Cohen’s training guide to prepare us.

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Locations We Have ‘Worked’ At:

Different locations will allow you to bring a service dog in training (SDiT) into their locations if you ask, but it is your liability should anything happen (potty accidents, etc.). On request if someone asked me to leave a location, I would gladly do so because it is their right, since Mave is not a service dog (yet). These locations I we visited had no problem with me bringing in Mavis, but I only worked on training commands in outer locations since she is so tiny and not completely potty trained yet. Documentation is important! So lots of photos, videos, and a log should be written down, in the case your service dog is questioned or legal action is brought against you.

As we perfect our commands and learn new ones, we hope you will follow our journey.

Xo,

Cass & Mavis

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Chronic Pain Confessions

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If you haven’t visited Amanda’s blog: Everything Hurts, you definitely should. Her latest post has to do with her confessions dealing with chronic pain. I decided to follow suit using her amazing crafted and perfect icons to lead the way.

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I have struggled most of my life with emotional pain, but I didn’t have to deal with constant physical pain until I began showing symptoms of Chiari. I try my absolute best to pretend I’m completely healthy and put together, but I am fighting every day. Today I had severe back pain. I was at work doing my best to make sure it wasn’t noticible that I was in pain. I kept counting down the hours until I got off. Every time I bent down (when working with dogs, that is very often) I felt a jolt down my back. When standing, I felt a constant almost “buzzing” pain that feels like when you sit on your foot too long and it falls asleep, but you continue trying to walk on it mixed with a Charlie horse cramp. I finally closed the playroom down and put all the dogs in their crates for nap time. I looked at the clock, so eager to head out, but I had an hour left. I was assigned to take the grooming dogs out to potty. Every time I made it outside, I leaned against the wall crouched down with deep breathing (like a pregnant lady in labor), while the pups did their business.

I hide my pain. I don’t like telling my parents because I’m afraid they’ll discredit it. They have supported me through everything, but they also think that this surgery is an instant cure all solution and I am afraid to disappoint them.

I’m tired of saying I don’t feel well or my neck is killing me and then having to hear the “maybe it’s the insert some common bug/virus” or “muscle strains suck.”

I’m tired of feeling depressed. I try my best to do the right thing for my mental health, but I get anxious about how others perceive me. Do they think I look fat? Do they think I’m dressed sloppily? Do I look happy?  I have a chemical imbalance and no medication I have taken has made things bearable for a continued period. Getting more exercise, eating gluten free, or trying said homeopathic solution isn’t going to work for me (that’s not to say it won’t work for others).

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I have a very physical job. I am constantly moving. I feel like it is enough for me, but I want to do more. I want to be that fit BBG girl that looks super cute and they love to work out (or make it look like that) and that it’s super easy. Or that cool yoga chick that has trendy workout gear they actually work out and not just to lounge in.

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I’ve had five surgeries since birth, but all my scars are hidden and people can’t see the pain I have had to endure. Every single day is different. Some days I miraculously don’t have any physical pain. Then there are days which I call “spoon days,” like today, where I wake up in pain. My back jolts, my neck aches, my muscles hurt, and no I didn’t exercise the day before. Most days are in between these two. I’m excited to have Mavis trained as a service dog, but am nervous about how people will perceive me. Will they think I am a sham trying to pass off a cute pooch as a service dog just so I can take her into places? (Hello anxiety, dear old demon).

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I always have used food as a coping mechanism, which is why I was so overweight (obese, actually) as a child and in my teens. It will most likely always be a love/hate relationship because now I have IBS (although not confirmed and I don’t think it is, I think it’s just MCAD) and MCAD to deal with, which makes foods scary for me. Foods that I have never had a reaction too, suddenly make my mast cells react for no reason. I can eat that same food and have nothing wrong the next time. I have “plumbing” issues and often get sick from eating different foods. Yet, I have my junk food weaknesses, like most people do. (SourPunch Straws and Sonic are my guilty pleasures) Why do I feel Diet Coke is a necessity (I cannot have high sugar amounts because I get deathly ill, no I don’t know why, but 30g of sugar is my limit, so Diet is the only soda I can have, yes I know the “real” soda might as well be better, but soda is bad regardless, and here I go again, thinking too much of what other people think about my habits)?

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This post wasn’t an easy one to write, but I’m glad I did. Working towards self love and a happy or manageable lifestyle.

If anybody who reads this has good tips on managing anxiety, let me know. I’m willing to try anything: like blogging for example, getting my thoughts out via the world wide web. Only a handful of people will most likely read this and I’m good with that.

xo,

Cass

(image and icons from Amanda Vinci, everythinghurts.me)

New Leaf.

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Turning over a new leaf is always a difficult task, but one that I have been faced with. After completing almost three months of school, I was devastated to realize I had to withdraw from my classes. Not only was I suffering with severe anxiety (that has gotten worse since my operation) and depression, but my memory is getting even worse. I am having problems recalling times, dates, and with my school work: even the most basic of terms, which has caused a great decline in my grades. After talking to my doctor, he determined I should withdraw because I was basically over doing it and could potentially threaten my recovery. I have now been out of school for a little over a week. While it is comforting, knowing that I don’t have to stress over assignments and tests, although I am still enrolled in my last Spanish class, I am disappointed that I couldn’t keep up with the semester and that I won’t be graduating this year. I have to take back control of my health, so a neuropathologist is in order to get my cognitive function tested. I’m not sure what results will show, but maybe going through some therapy (such as speech therapy, etc.) will aid me in recovering some of prior abilities. In addition to dealing with my “brain issues,” I have to test out several medications in order to help me with my a&d. I have tried so many different ones, that I’m becoming a bit exhausted and hopeless that I will ever find something that works.Screen Shot 2016-01-06 at 9.41.35 PMI have to report some ups amongst my many downs. First and foremost, I have a new addition in my life: Mavis. Mavis (pronounce Mahv-is, not Mae-vis) Odessa is my twelve-week-old Puglet, who is the light of my life. My parents and my boyfriend all went in to gift me my tiny biff for my 23rd birthday. From about the age of six-years-old, I have obsessed over the idea of having a pug. My parents were always against it, so it never became, until now. We first met her on February 6th and then picked her up on March 6th. I am currently training little Mav to be my service dog with the help of Lelah Sullivan’s book and hopefully Service Dog Express (whom I’ve contacted and will hear back within two weeks). She is so full of joy and energy and today she completed her first day of intensive training and did wonderfully. I took her in public and tested her ability to hold her attention on me. This being her first time, cars, birds, and little noises distracted her, but she soon got the hang of keeping focused on me with some great reinforcing clicker training. She’s my little companion and I can’t wait to see what a difference she will make in my life, once she is trained. Another little joyous moment came with a new job. I now work at a doggy daycare center and have enjoyed it thus far, but have decided it is too physical for me to sustain. I didn’t realize the full extent this operation would take on me physically, mentally, and emotionally. I over did it. I can’t keep up with everybody else, which is hard for me to accept. My memory and my strength (physically and emotionally) has degraded. The frustration that comes with this is unbelievable. I know that I am not alone, but yet I feel it most days in terms of my mental/emotional/physical status. I can’t guess when I have flare days, yet I have to push through them with excruciating pain in my neck and back and brain fog that won’t shake, no matter how hard I focus on concentrating. My ability to stay focused has diminished and I am beyond irritated at myself, although I know it is out of my control, that I cannot control it. I have found some support through Chiari Life on facebook that has helped me feel more united, but I still am struggling.

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One last thing! I wanted to expand my blog into my other passions: as you might’ve noticed from my last post. I am trying to start loving myself more and more and appreciating the things that I am good at and enjoy. I love fashion, but I hardly have been able to be fashionable because of my condition. Most days I have felt exhausted and not up to dressing up, so now that things are getting better, I want to share my passion as well as my training updates with Mavis, and other bits and pieces of my odd little life. I hope that whoever follows my blog, will continue to, and whoever doesn’t will be drawn to a new diversity.

Much Love,

Cass & Mavis

follow Mav on instagram (@mavisodessa) for updates on growing up.

(images are created/taken by me. Please do not repost without permission)