Jumping Rainbows

My greatest wish

As the holiday season quickly approaches, I have been asked what I want most for Christmas.  Now, because I'm almost 23, you would probably expect that my Christmas wish list would be that of CDs, DVDs, clothes, makeup, apartment accessories, and so on.  I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that in past years, you would have been right.  However, not this year... 

Imagine having your mobility, and all the abilities that you have right now, at this very God given moment, stripped away from you in a split second.  Now imagine never having any of those abilities at all.  What if I told you that there was a way that you could gain, or regain most of those abilities, thereby increasing your independence and sense of self-worth?  What would you think if I told you that the key to this independence was harbored in a very unlikely, and unconventional place?  How about if I told you this independence was in the form of a dog?  Would you believe me?  If you did, would you do anything you could to get this special type of dog? 

These special dogs do exist.  They're called Service Dogs, or sometimes Mobility Assistance Dogs.  In many cases, they are trained by nonprofit organizations specifically to do the things that people with physical disabilities are unable to do without the assistance of a human.  Let me give you an example: have you ever dropped your keys, and bent down to pick them up?  Well, when you must use a wheelchair 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, picking up keys, can seem like, and often is, an impossible task without the assistance of someone else.  Mobility Assistance Dogs are trained to retrieve dropped items, and return them to the individuals lap on command.  Ever needed to grab the remote control off the arm of the couch, because you wanted to change the channel?  They can be trained to do that too, putting their front paws on the arm of the couch, and grabbing it with their mouths.  Sound intriguing? 

I thought so too, that's why 10 years ago I started out on the journey to have one myself.  For about nine of those 10 years, I felt like I was getting nowhere because of where I was from at the time.  Then in 2005, everything changed...  Or so I thought...  I met a guy named Dave Crawford through the insurance agent of my mom.  As it turned out, he trained, and still is training, all of the dogs for the Sioux Falls Police Academy.  He also does the occasional Service Dog.  Dave and I found an eight week old Yellow Labrador Retriever in August of 2005, and she began training.  Keep in mind, that the nonprofit organizations that I mentioned earlier have a waiting list of three to five years.  When I talked to Dave originally, he was confident that her training should take no more than a year.  When Dave, Lola, (that's what I named her), and I started out on this journey, I was confident that I was finally going to have this dream come true, and it was going to be a team effort.  I would be involved every step of the way.  It was that way for a while... 

Now that we've taken a trip down memory lane, let me somewhat abruptly, and very sadly bring you to the present.  It is now September 24th, 2006 and even though Lola is always a part of my life in mind, and in spirit, she is still not here with me physically.  To make matters worse, I have not been kept up-to-date as I was promised.  The last time I saw her was when she was three months old, and she will be 15 months old on October 1st, 2006.  At this point all I can do is wait it out, because even though she is mine in every sense of the phrase, including monetarily, no other agency will complete her training because her training was previously started by someone else.  All the nonprofit agencies put it like this: "If we don't start the training with the dog, we won't finish it." That being said, the way I see it, I only have two options: (1) I go pick her up, and have a partially trained dog, which I can't take out in public, (at least not properly), or (2) I let the training continue, and hope that eventually she'll be "ready".  What would you do? 

So, what do I want for Christmas more than anything in the entire world?  I want Lola and I to be working together as a happy, healthy, successful team; to be able to tell everyone that my 10 year plus dream has come true.  So as the holiday season approaches, I hope you will help me pray for what would truly be a Christmas miracle! 

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