Dax and I on our first day

It was in May of 2015. I had just gotten the news that my youngest daughter was planning on moving herself and two children back to the Niagara area. This was a real blow to my system, since we had spent the last two years supporting each other through life’s challenges as she got on her feet as a single parent, while I struggled with coming to terms with understanding my recent diagnosis of CPTSD-DID.

Over the years, being undiagnosed with PTSD meant that I was not able to explain to myself or others what all the symptoms that I suffered with were about or how to get any real help from any of my healthcare providers. It’s been a life of struggle to manage the day to day challenges of raising a family as a single parent while having an unknown disability. Losing this family  and the closeness of my grandbabies was devastating, but there was nothing I could do but try to be supportive and let my youngest adult child fly into her future. So, with the help of my Trauma Therapist, I started my own journey towards taking full responsibility for all of my own needs. This meant coming to terms with being on my own for the first time in my life.

During the summer of 2015, there had been quite a bit of talk on the radio and through social media about PTSD. What it was and how others were dealing with it. This really helped to start the conversation about getting a service dog.  Through my research into what a service dog could be trained to do for someone suffering with PTSD, I became very excited in knowing that in many areas of my life, having a service dog would be a great asset. As someone who suffered from what I was learning was severe dissociation during this period of my life, just having a constant partner that would be able to help ground me when dissociation would overwhelm my system, would be life changing. I would be able to go shopping, for walks, visit with friends in public places.  Join in performing my music and not become so overwhelmed with the physical sensations of dissociation. At times, I would be unable to see or hear.  My limbs would become so numb that I was unable to control them to walk or grasp with my hands or keep my balance.  With the lessening of this intense dissociation, the amnesia that was caused by these bodily functions shutting down, would lessen as well. This would start to give me back some short term memory that had been severely impaired for many years.

As I continued working with my Therapist, I learned that the less one dissociates, the less dissociation occurs. It’s like a re-setting of the “body can tolerate this” dial. This also meant that in a sense, I would be experiencing healing physically as well as emotionally. This was so exciting to think that my life could be better and that I could heal from the past that I decided that I needed to commit to getting a service dog.  The question became, how?

It was the beginning of the summer and by this time my daughter and grandkids had moved to Niagara. I was truly alone and doing life on my own for the first time since becoming a mom at 16 years of age. There were a few things that I had been able to accomplish with great effort over the last 4 years. I had been able to extricate myself from a 16 year relationship that had turned abusive, moved to another city, made a few new friends and had found a great music community. But I still needed to established myself in my own apartment. After another year, one more short but abusive relationship, finding myself in an abusive work environment that I had to leave and a stay in a local women’s shelter, I was done trying to hide my suffering. I couldn’t hide it any longer even if my life depended on it. I needed help.

Thank god my family Doctor’s office came to my rescue with a referral to a Trauma Therapist. After six months of therapy, I finally had my diagnosis, a wonderful Trauma Therapist, Family Doctor and Psychiatrist supporting me. I felt that i had been very fortunate to be able to pull my own health team together and with their help and support I was able to then obtain some financial stability through Disability Pension, which gave me safety and security.

While this pension provides for the very basics of sustaining life, it does not provide for any savings or extras. And as I began my research of what owning a service dog was going to entail (pun intended…lol), it became apparent very early on that the cost of a service dog in Canada was out of this world. Here in Canada, a service dog will run a person with a disability as much as $16,000. This was jaw-dropping to say the least. I was gobsmacked!

I didn’t know how I was going to come up with the money or if I could do it, but I did know that I needed this service dog to give me the freedom that others enjoyed and the support of a companion and the healing from the debilitating dissociation I was experiencing continually. The motivation just wasn’t squelched with hearing the cost, but a quiet sense of curiosity, of ‘let’s see how this is going to work’ took over me.

So that summer, I pushed through each day and got busy talking to my friends and health team about what options I had that may help me raise enough money to at least start an application. It was during this time that I decided that I could sell some of my artwork. I had been making ‘Reborn’ Baby Dolls as a hobby and decided that if I could sell enough of them, that I could raise the money. If all went well, I could open a store on line and sell over the internet. Raising the money would take maybe several years, but at least I would be doing something that was productive, proactive and helping me to move myself forward towards healing. It would occupy my time(which I had more of since the grandkids were now not living in town). So, I opened a store on Etsy. I found a Service Dog provider that fortunately was near my hometown, made my application and I got to work making and promoting my Reborn Baby Dolls.

One morning, I woke up with an idea. Several years before I had worked as an Auxiliary Police Constable for our local provincial government. I decided to make an application to a ‘PTSD Veterans/First Responders’ Grant Program being offered by this same Service Dog Training Centre. To my great relief, I was accepted. This meant that 2/3 of the cost of purchasing a service dog would be covered. Now I had to raise the remaining 1/3 of the cost on my own. I was so over the top excited. It felt like somehow the universe was smiling on my plan and it gave me the courage to keep moving forward.

As I kept working towards my goal, I kept sharing the good news with others. This had the effect of causing me to stop and think about how I was going to talk about my disability. How would I handle inquisitive personal questions into my life and past by well meaning people. I still wasn’t so sure I was comfortable with letting people know that I was suffering and I was so afraid of the stigma and being treated in a negative way, of people being afraid of me. But as I continued in my trauma therapy, I was starting to experience what it felt like to not have to ‘hide’ my secret and the relief was amazing.

I grieved the life I had had. A life of using almost all my energy everyday to try to hide what was going on inside of me from my kids, my parents, teachers, my friends, my boss and co-workers. The idea that living in a world of openness instead of secrecy could be had was very motivating. I decided with my Trauma Therapist that I would and could benefit by coming ‘out of the closet’ so to speak, about having PTSD. So I started to develop a language to be able to talk about what was going on with me and how PTSD was manifesting in me.

We talked about boundaries and how to keep myself safe while talking to others about PTSD. One of the most liberating things that my Therapist said to me was that we do not need to hear the story of why you developed PTSD, the fact that you’ve developed it is enough proof that the body needed to respond to a life threatening event(s) and thank god it did or you wouldn’t be alive today. She has a wonderful way of taking an experience or belief and turning it into something really positive and useful.

During the end of August, I received a shocking and unexpected deposit to my bank account. Apparently, the ex had been found after hiding and running from the courts for the past 5 years and the support “arrears” had been finally paid in full. After I picked myself up off the floor, I went right away to the bank and got a money order for the remaining cost for the service dog program and contacted the Training Centre right away to make an appointment. I was so excited to let them know that I had come up with the final amount to cover all the costs and that I was ready to finalize my application. We made an appointment for me to come out to the Centre the following day. I was dissociating just with the thrill of knowing that it was finally a go!! I had to say a thank you to the universe for smiling on me and my crazy plan.

The day I first met Dax was amazing! I was so excited and scared. I was terrified because I didn’t know what to expect and what the Centre could do for me personally. But through our meeting, the owner reassured me that there were many things that Dax could be trained to do for me that would improve my day to day life.

3 month old Dax, my Service Dog a bit tuckered from his first hike in the woods.

She spoke, I listened trying to not dissociate and wondering if I would be able to remember the conversation later. My head swam and I could feel tears and joy as they brought this beautiful black puppy to me. How nervous he was to walk through the door and approach me. The owner of the Training Centre talked about how young he was and that he would be spending the next year and maybe up to a year and a half growing, learning and training at the Centre before he would be ready to come home to live and work with me. It was going to be a new beginning for both of us.

She invited me to spend some time with him that afternoon and I got to meet some of the other trainers that would be working with us both over the next year and a half. And so at that moment, my life changed. I was no longer alone. I was now part of a new team. My team of healthcare providers had just grown larger. My team now included Dax and 4 more wonderful service dog trainers and all the expertise and ongoing public access advocacy support that the two of us would require as we moved forward. And so ends the first leg of my journey.

Dax, taking a quick break from learning to be on a lead for the first time.

In the weeks that followed, I started to slowly find my footing. I was encouraged to start including Dax(figuratively) in my 2x a week Trauma Therapy sessions. For the first several months, this meant having conversations with my Therapist about how Dax could be included and what did that look like. What would he do for me during these sessions? How did she feel about having Dax in her office? Did it impact her ability to provide Therapy to me? Did she even like Dogs? It became apparent that these questions were just the beginning. There were going to be many, many more questions about how to fit Dax into my life and my community.

Just before Christmas, the owner of the Centre sat me down and asked me how I felt about fostering Dax through the Holidays, since their Centre was going to be closed and I wouldn’t be able to have my regular 2x per week visits with him during this time. She was very intuitive, knowing that I would be facing the Christmas season alone. She felt that having Dax would be very comforting for me and make the holidays just a little easier to get through. I cried with joy and gratefulness to receive such kindness. And so, on Dec 22nd, I went to the Centre and picked up my 5 month old black lab, who came with a Service Dog Vest, wire crate, bowls, a large bag of dog food, a leash and collar.

In preparation of Dax coming home for the week, I made an appointment with the Administrator of my Co op and explained what was coming because as part of our Co op Policies, Dogs more that 18″ high are not allowed to reside in our building. My Administrator was so supportive. She helped me put together a little blurb in our news letter that would be delivered to every member’s door explaining that Dax, the newest member of our Co op would be coming to visit for the holidays and full time in the spring. That he was a Working Dog and not a Pet. She also included a short descriptions of what the Ontario Disabilities Act states about Service Dogs and access and also that although Dax was a very friendly dog, he was not to be approached while he was wearing his Service Dog Vest because he would be working and it would distract him.

That week was one that was full of challenge, lots of fresh air, talking to other dog owners, frustrations, several long walks per day and lots of naps and a sense of freedom from dissociation I have never known.

For five days Dax and I spent almost every waking minute together. Although he wasn’t allowed Public Access yet because he was not neutered, I was still able to take him for a lovely walk one evening to our local shopping centre that has a pet store. He was such a well behaved pup while we were there shopping for a Kong toy and poopie bags for him. The clerk gave me treat samples for him that he enjoyed trying to dig out of his new Kong toy when we got home. This was his first toy ever.

It was so sweet to be able to be with him as he was introduced to his first ride on an elevator, teaching him to go up and down stairs, learning how to like going into his wire cage bed, car rides, nature walks, his first trip to the beach and to meet some of my closest friends on christmas day. Dax also experienced walking along the Thames River Parkway, which included lots of new people, new dogs and bicycles, roller blades and skateboards. Yes, all of this foot traffic was an awesome experience for Dax and me to manage and the weather was wonderful it was 15′ C and sunny almost the whole week. Very unusual for Ontario in December

Dax did so well with all these new things. He was a real little trooper, finding his own footing in such a new environment. It was with a lot of pride that I watched him gaining his confidence each day on our outings. And during our time at home, our naps together were very comforting. He, passed out on the floor at my feet and me, passed out on the couch. We practiced as many of his basic commands over and over again and started to include new ones, like shake a paw. But there was just one problem we were having that eventually caused me so much stress, I had to take him back to the Training Centre a few days early. Dax wasn’t able to get the connection in his mind about going to the bathroom outside. He was more than capable of holding his bladder for more than a night and a few extra hours during the morning. He had demonstrated this over several days. Even though I made valiant efforts to provide him with opportunities to pee outside, he just wouldn’t do it outside but would wait till he got back in the house and pee on my floor.

I tried everything I knew how to remedy this. I purchase those pee-pads, carpet cleaner, carpet spot and scent remover, and scent spray for outside, timing his food and water intake with trips out to the yard, but to no avail. So on the 26th of Dec, with lots of tears, I took him back to the Centre and told them how disappointed I was that I couldn’t housebreak him. They were so good to me. They assured me that this would be remedied and not to feel discouraged.

Since then, Dax has been back living at the Centre. I’m still seeing him 2x per week and looking forward to the day he is housebroken and will start coming home for weekend visits. This is our plan to for now.

Dax wearing his Service Vest for the first time.

Dax spent two weeks at the Centre while they finished house training him for me and when he came home, it was for good!! ❤️

Dax and I have spent the last nine years together almost every day. We do everything as a team and my life has changed tremendously!!! It’s very rare that I suffer from severe dissociation. The panic and anxiety episodes are almost non existent now. We stay very active getting out for walks several times a day and after selling my car in 2019, Dax and I started using my bike as our main form of transportation. This encouraged us to start bike touring/camping and because Dax and I had started urban mushing in 2017, it was really easy for Dax to just keep running beside my bike whether we were off to the store or off to visit friends 80 km away in Port Burwell.