The Bittersweet Emotions of a Service Dog Puppy Raiser

January, 2010, I became an official Puppy Raiser for Kansas Service Dog Organization (http://www.ksds.org/).  They put in my arms this wiggly yellow lab puppy, Meade, and I assumed the role of her mother and teacher. 

During these past two years I have (along with help from family and ACC family) worked teaching Meade how to be a good canine citizen; house training, crate training, sit, down, stay, leave it, no, off (something we all still hear in our sleep), give it, bring it, wait, touch it, drop it, come, here-up, go up, etc.  Meade has shared my work every day, attended ball games, fireworks, fishing, farm chores, family gatherings, evenings out to dinner, lunches, trips to the grocery store, parades, visits to schools, concerts, doctor and dentist office.  She has been my constant companion.  We play ball until my arm aches, we walk 2-5 miles at least 3 times a week.  Meade has stolen and eaten at least half of my last two birthday cakes, ate a book I was reading, rummaged through the trash cans, discovered that the muddier the water hole the more fun she can have.  

It has been an adventure and learning process (for me and Meade) that I wouldn't have missed for the world.   From that first day, when I brought her home from KSDS, I knew that she wasn't mine for long.  I knew that one day she would be going back to her KSDS home to learn more about her job as a service dog and to meet, bond and help a new parent.  She was destined for special things.  

I knew, when the time came for her to move forward in her career, that I was going to miss her.  I just didn't know that I was going to start missing her even before she had left.  This past week, KSDS has notified me that it is time for Meade to leave for college.  Since,  I have been filled with ambivalence about  her return to KSDS on February 25th.  One moment I am extremely proud to be a part of something greater than myself, proud to watch her while she works and plays, proud in knowing that I have played a role in what she is to yet become; the next I am worried that I have taught her what she needs to know in order to succeed in her work, worried about how she will miss us, distraught over how we will miss her.  

I told myself from the beginning, she was not mine to keep, she would be leaving one day for a greater good.  I believed that this would prepare me mentally and emotionally for that day when it arrived.  I was wrong.  Instead, I look at her, my chest full of pride, my eyes full of tears and my heart heavy with selfishly longing to keep her near.  

Just as I let go of my daughters when they became young women; so that they may continue to learn, grow and lead a life independent of their mother, I will let go of Meade.  I know that time will heal my woeful heart and leave behind some wonderful memories and always a sense of great pride for what she will offer in companionship and assistance to a disable person that desperately needed someone just like MEADE!

                                                                                                                

3 Ways Your Veterinarian beats Human Doctors

1.  Diagnostics are more transparent. When was the last time your doctor sat down with a printout of your blood work results and went over the findings with you? For that matter, when was the last time your doctor informed you of your results at all—without your calling the office multiple times only to get a terse "Everything was normal" from a nurse? Many clinics have in-clinic testing, the veterinarian can discuss results in the exam room before the client has even left the building—something virtually unheard of in human medicine.

Diagnostics, whether in the form of blood testing or visual imaging, are crucial to understanding what's going on with a patient's health. Diagnostics are also expensive. When clients pay out of pocket for these tests, they need to understand exactly what they're paying for. But I think it's more than that. I believe veterinarians are more likely than physicians to engage in dialogue with clients and view them as partners in the healthcare team. Physicians are more likely to give unilateral instructions without context.

2.  General practitioners are still looking out for the whole patient.  Increasingly in human medicine, a patient's health is managed by a team of specialists who are focused on their own organ systems but not considering how their decisions affect coexisting conditions. Recently, our veterinary assistant's father was diagnosed with cancer.  He also suffers from two other chronic illnesses.  Each illness was being treated by a specialist; he had three doctors.  As the family made inquires regarding his response to his cancer treatments, the oncologist told the family that his complications were due to his uncontrolled diabetes(being treated by an endocrinologist).  The family kept insisting his blood sugars were normal and cancer doctor actually argued that it wasn't.  However, his medical records showed that it was.  The cancer doctor had not only not read the notes to the man's records made by the endocrine god, but was not even consulting with him.   No one was looking out for this man's overall health. In veterinary medicine, even when a general practitioner refers a patient to a specialist, the GP is still more likely to manage the whole patient and decide how to balance contraindications.  When I send my patients to a specialist, the specialist faxes me, calls me or sends me e-mail about what is going on with my patient and even gives me direction how to continue with the patient when it returns to my care for things he knows that I am able to monitor and treat.  If they do not, I find a different speciality referral center.

3.  There's simply less arrogance and superiority. This is my opinion, and of course there are major exceptions on both sides, but I believe that in general veterinarians are more compassionate and humble than physicians are. As a general practitioner, I willing to admit that I don't always have all the answers.  Many of my clients can attest that it is not beyond me to say "I don't know" and "let me look something up" or "let me call Dr. X (a specialist) for some input".  Even when I consult with a specialist, I rarely have one discuss a case with me as if I am less of a doctor than they are.  Additionally, how many of you get phone calls from your human doctor or nurses making inquiry about your health progress or remind you of important follow-up tests that you need?  We do!

4.  I know I said three...but I just happened to think of something else; again this is my humble opinion.  Veterinarians are better diagnosticians.  Our human counterparts often have an easier job of diagnosing your problem, because you can talk.  You can tell  your doctor where it hurts, what you think may have caused the problem, how you feel, what you have eaten in the last 24 hours, etc. Your dog cannot talk; thus cannot tell me that they are vomiting because they ate a dead bird in the yard (of course you did not see it happen).  There are hundreds of reason that the dog/cat could be vomiting (dietary indiscretion, foreign bodies, renal disease, liver disease, endocrine disease, etc).  So we have to rely more heavily on our acute sense of touch, hearing, smelling, sight, our Ellery Queen Mystery questions to our clients, our experience to start with the most common problems (requiring less expense to our client and aggravation and evasiveness  to our patient) and then work up to more aggressive forms of diagnosis.

I realize that I am biased.  I am also proud to be a veterinarian.  I love it when I hear a client say to me, "I wish you could treat me" or "my doctor doesn't take the time to talk to me and explain to me the things you do about 'Fluffy'".  When I hear these things, I know that I must be doing something right.