X-HugSpecialist

Today my power wheelchair hit 15,000 km. Almost every one of those kilometres had a Rottweiler beside it. Losing my legs meant relearning everything. And it was and still is, hard. Opening a door and getting through it. Getting out of bed at 3 a.m. to pee. Even getting into bed. I am eternally grateful a Rottweiler was there for all of it. Kuno, a huge dog with a massive heart, taught me how to live this life. Without him I am fairly certain I would have stayed in bed, stared at the TV, and hated the world. Instead he got me outside, and we learned how to navigate a community built when people like me were expected to live in institutions. Those kilometres were full of firsts. First grocery shop with no help. First time stuck in a couple inches of snow. First time I could not get into a business because they chose an inaccessible location. First time I trained a puppy from a wheelchair. I was painfully self-conscious those first years. The pity smiles. The awkward questions. The stranger in the grocery store who asked to lay hands on me and pray. I coped by getting better at dog training. Kuno and I put a ridiculous number of miles on together. We took classes and found mentors. I learned to drive with hand controls, then bought a used accessible van so we could travel. This wheelchair has rolled all over the prairies when we've completed in Rally Obedience trials. We played in parks in the sun. Trained in the underground parking when it snowed. We gave presentations on service dogs, accessibility, and disability at community groups, schools, and post-secondary institutions. We challenged the city on multiple issues and became the unofficial accessibility watchdog team. At Christmas we raised funds for charities. More importantly, except for a couple of brutal weather days when I had to call emergency dog-walking help, we were out in the community being active. A lot of those kilometres were spent training very specific work: backing in a perfect heel, spins, pivoting beside the chair, even pivots with the dog in front facing me. We got so good it almost became a dance. He walked beside me the first time I rolled down the sidewalk in this chair. I rolled beside him on the last steps he took before he passed away. A few years ago Chesnyy joined the household and the kilometres started adding up faster. We started working with a government-qualified service dog organization and now we teach some of their classes. Last year Chesnyy and I moved into an accessible house with my best friend, and another Rottweiler puppy arrived. There are still a lot of walks left. Winter is still highly inaccessible. After 15,000 km the challenges have shifted. Many barriers are still there and we will keep tackling them. I am more confident now. It took a lot of work, but I have proven myself in the dog training community. I still miss things I can no longer do, but I have accepted this disability and I am trying to live my best life. The bigger fight now is pain. Chronic pain is not new. It was an issue before amputation. Phantom pain no longer surprises me. My shoulders hurts tremendously from transferring and lifting from a seated position. My back aches from sitting. And yes, my butt hurts. Pain makes motivation really hard. The dogs help with that. On the days when I just want to give up, wet noses nudge me on. 15,000 km is a lot for a power chair. I got this one in the fall of 2020. Techs are always shocked at the mileage. They typically see about 5,000 km over the life of a chair. This one will probably need replacing in the next year or so. Thankfully there is some government funding but they only fund base models. Good chairs that are easier on the body and actually work well cost a lot more. A full-time power wheelchair in Canada often starts around $15,000. Add tilt to help prevent pressure sores and you can easily add another $10,000. When you live in the chair it has to be customized. One of the hardest parts of disability is the cost. I am fortunate to have a consistent disability income that covers monthly bills but I don't have extended medical insurance to get upgraded equipment. Prescriptions, physical therapy, and a lot of disability related equipment is all out of pocket. I am not asking for money. I just want people to understand that power mobility is ridiculously expensive, and that a couple of giant-hearted Rottweilers made 15,000 km possible. Today I took the chair off the pavement and did a little 4x4ing so the dogs could run off-leash on a beautiful summer day. Watching them play, I thought about every hard kilometre that got us here. That still makes my heart smile. ❤️🐾❤️ Admin

Last week we introduced Kenji to the button that initiates a video call to an emergency contact. Because he already knows to push buttons, he only needed to learn that it was a paw push not a nose push, and the cue "FaceTime". Today he had his second training session and we moved the button into the living room where it will be used, and he immediately went and pushed it when cued. Then we started to add distance. We did a few runs from within the living room, then a few from the kitchen, and finally a few from the back porch. He did it every single time. Young dogs learn very quickly. We kept the session short and just did a few repetitions at the furthest distance. It's tempting to go further away or into a different room, but it's better to leave that for the next session. Overtraining can take the fun out of it for the dog. Yes, they need to get lots of repetitions in for a behavior to become precise and reliable, but we want to keep it enjoyable and not increase difficulty too quickly. If he's already done several repetitions from a distance and then we ask him to do it from a room further away, then we run the risk of him losing interest in the activity and becoming more interested in some of the distractions he passes along the way. Like his bone and a toy box. When training a new skill, the dog needs lots of wins. It's far better for us to end the session where we did, rather than move to the bedroom and have him decide to stop and check out his bone on his way to the button. In a day or so we will do another session with him doing it once from the living room, a couple of fast repetitions from the back porch with exciting rewards, and then increase the difficulty while he's highly motivated. The session after that we will probably hook it up and introduce the sounds that it makes. He's doing awesome at this. It's not surprising. We know that there's more in his giant noggin than just marshmallows. Even if he's still hoping that button let's him video chat with Pizza Hut. 🎥 Kenji being awesome #Rottweiler #PuppyTraining #KenjiChaos