Validation

(This post is part of the April A to Z blogging challenge.)

I suppose it's something we all seek, in some manner. I'm sure it's part of why Duncan was my first dog to earn titles. I didn't care if my hunting dog was up to other people's standards- she was my "nurse dog" before we knew about service dogs for people like me. But she was shy and would never make it as a public SD, so her behavior only mattered if it pleased me.

Duncan went everywhere. I'd never intentionally trained a SD before. I wanted to do it "right," and so we went to classes (something I'd rarely done with Twink or other Setters). We went for his Canine Good Citizen (dropped in cold with a trainer/evaluator I'd never met before, totally rocked it). We went for Rally titles and his Companion Dog title... and we trained even more than that. We were at the Open (Intermediate) level of training when I pulled him from showing.

But more than the titles, it was in large part the comments of others that made me feel like we were a good team. People saying "I didn't know there was a dog in here!" as we got up and left a restaurant and my 90 pound dog appeared from under a table. The way an actor at a Murder Mystery dinner almost stepped on him before registering that there was a dog there. The (mortifying) way my professor stopped his first lecture in calculus to demand "What is THAT?" because the "backpack" had moved of its own accord. (He was fine with Duncan afterward, but he wasn't expecting a dog, and Duncan had laid so still as he passed that his brain saw just another backpack.)


It was store employees following us, looking for misbehavior and an excuse to throw us out, or an auctioneer's helper telling me as we walked past the glassware and sculptures that if "that dog breaks anything, you buy it!" (Which is the law, anyway...) It was leaving those same places with compliments on his behavior, or an invite to come back any time. It was having people in stores remember him and be glad to see him show up that made me feel like I wasn't just seeing what I wanted to see, but that he was a good representative of a service dog.

My dad resisted the idea of my using a SD the most, and that was less that he didn't really think a dog could help, and was more a matter of thinking that asking a human for help and having a dog who loved to help were on par. I'm not sure I have fully impressed upon my family how much I dislike depending on them, because in many ways, it's not optional. I couldn't have made it to this point without them.

But the shift from "do you have to bring him?" to "are you bringing him?" to "he's welcome to come along" to the assumption that where I went, Duncan would also be was gradual. I don't know when it was exactly, but Dad was grilling or doing something in the yard, and we were talking. Duncan was loose, playing with the other dogs, and he broke off playing ran over to me, and pinned me in the camp chair. It was an alert/response. I got woozy shortly after, and once the spell was over, Duncan went right back to his play time.

Dad saw this rescue mutt quit his fun times, come help me before I even knew something was wrong, saw Duncan pin me so I was safe- of Duncan's own initiative and volition- and then go back to play. I hadn't intentionally cued anything. Dad hadn't seen anything. But the dog knew. I think that's when Duncan's usefulness was validated in Dad's mind.

There was also going to the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The staff at both places were well versed and polite. I was waiting for my group of friends to finish in the pyramid exhibit, and someone came up and asked if I were lost- Duncan was behaving so calmly, she thought he was a guide dog and I'd lost my way. A different worker called out on a walkie-talkie so everyone knew a SD was coming through. A bit embarrassing to be announced like that, but also one of those times where it's a big attraction. They've seen a lot of SDs... and he measures up. It made me very proud.