Isis the Service Dog

In honor of Isis’ 9th birthday last week (February 14th) and our Seven year Teamiversary this week (February 21st) I thought it would be appropriate to do a post all about Isis.

While I will post more about the past of my mental and physical health journey in future posts I will start by saying that I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2012 after an awful malpractice situation. Months into my PTSD things were continuing to go downhill, even on meds. I was depriving myself of sleep to avoid vivid nightmares and the sleep deprivation was causing me to hallucinate my nightmares during the day. I was experiencing paranoia that I was being watched and followed and always felt like everyone around me was about to hurt me. I was having severe anxiety attacks multiple times a day and was having dissociative episodes when I lost all awareness of my surroundings. Things got so bad that I started missing classes because I was too scared to leave my apartment. That is when someone told me that there were service dogs trained for people with PTSD. In the days that followed I began discussing the pros and cons with my parents. They were absolutely on board with anything that helped me get my life back and encouraged me to look further into it. I quickly found a trainer who I spoke with multiple times that said he had a dog ready that had been trained for anxiety/PTSD work. After talking it over with my roommate I made the hour drive to Huntington Beach to meet this dog and see if we could bond and become a team.

I had been told by the trainer that the dog was a boxer. Female boxers weigh on average 50-60 pounds. When I walked into the trainers apartment I saw a MASSIVE dog sleeping on the couch and instantly thought, “this must be another dog he is working with.” That is when he called Isis over and the HUGE dog slowly got off the couch and came to great us. In this moment I was informed, for the first time, that Isis is a Boxmas, a boxer/mastiff mix. She weighed closer to 130 pounds and stood much higher that I expected. After okaying everything with my roommate Isis and I took a walk around the complex to get to know each other. I knew five minutes in that we would have a bond like nothing I had known before. I could feel the peace that I felt with her and felt like she knew it too. After a few hours of training work, Isis, her bed and toys, and some dog food were loaded into my car. She took up the entire back seat!

Due to some issues I was having with the campus disability services, and me still not completely knowing my rights as a service dog owner, I was not able to take Isis back to my on campus housing for several nights. In the meantime one of my great professors, Dr. Kinnes, stepped up and took her in. He called her a beast the first time he saw her but I know he loved her as much as I did. For the next several years Isis would go to Kinnes’ house at least once a week for a playdate with his dog Stormy and time to just be a dog.

When things finally somewhat resolved themselves with the school, or enough of my professors told me they would back me if anything happened, Isis moved into the small one bedroom apartment that my roommate Tracie and I shared. She claimed the couch and had a twin sized mattress all to herself. We had a few training hiccups when she refused to follow even the basic commands. I called her trainer and he instructed me to try the commands in Russian. Now, I don’t speak Russian but I learned the words I needed the best I could (thank you google translate!) and we tried again. To this day Isis knows that mama means business when she commands in Russian.

Over the next several weeks our bond continued to grow and Isis began to do things that surprised me. She started alerting before I had a panic attack and was able to stop them before then became anything beyond anxiety. I started sleeping again and felt safe going to class with my girl by my side. She even started waking me up from nightmares and helping me get back to sleep. She would help ground me when I was dissociating and would push me away from large groups of people. She changed my life overnight and I couldn’t believe the new found freedom she gave me.

My professors were super supportive and loved having her in their classes. Some of them even started keeping treats in their offices just for her (Prosser and Wilson). I could walk into the science building (my second home) and tell her to find one of my professors and she knew just where to go. She allowed me to attend night classes without fear that I would be hurt in the dark. She allowed me to focus in class because I knew that she would let me know if anyone came up behind me and would protect me from harm. She even helped me make some friends as she was an easy way to get the conversation started. I was able to go to chapel and listen to the speaker and take part in worship because I wasn’t worried about having an anxiety attack or thinking about all the dangerous people that could be hidden in the crowd. She became a celebrity on campus as she was the first service dog the school had ever had and people were always coming up saying they had heard about us or seen our picture online. She went everywhere I went and gave me the freedom to live my life again.

Over the next several years Isis and I shared many experiences. We were illegally denied service at restaurants and businesses and I learned to stand up for myself in a way I had never been able to do before. We found out that Isis loves cheeseburgers, bread, and whipped cream (which can be great rewards). We lost some friends who couldn’t understand why Isis was something I needed in my life, but we also gained some AMAZING friends who supported us through some challenging times. (Thanks Cynthia, Amanda, and many others!)

For the last seven years Isis and I have had some amazing adventures! One summer we got to be part of a school program in Washington called Au Sable. We lived with my Grandma Peggy for 7 weeks and got to travel all over beautiful Washington. We went camping together for the first time and both experienced our first hornet stings when out on a hike. We both got used to wearing hiking shoes and got to play in some amazing waterways. We rode the ferry and got to learn all about the environment and about what it looks like to be a woman of God. We made friendships and played as much as we could.

Isis and I got to nanny very special twin girls, Emma and Alyssa, and spend a lot of time with their family. When I started watching the girls I had not yet gotten Isis but when I did they welcomed her into their home as if nothing had changed. The girls weren’t so sure of this massive dog at first but Isis quickly grew on them and even let them dress her up as a princess and paint her toenails. Also, Vicky and Joe were the family support we needed being so far away from home.

At school Isis, the local celebrity, got to be part of the research team I was on with Jenessa, who quickly became Auntie J. We visited streams and other bodies of water and tested the water for their level of pollutants. Isis loved hiking with us to get water samples and laying on the cool tile floor while we tested all the samples. She got to be babysat by some amazing aunties when I had to have procedures done or was somewhere it wasn’t safe for her to be. She got to take all my classes with me and study during our many study sessions. In the end, she even got to graduate with me. The first service dog to walk across that stage! Even after graduation, Isis paved the way for other service dogs at the university to be accepted without the challenge we had.

We were also incredibly blessed in our last year of school to live with a spectacular woman in her beautiful home. Isis and I rented a room but had most of the house to be in. There was even a fenced back yard for Isis to have freedom to play. Margaret, the woman we lived with, was in her 90’s and still so independent that she tried to help take care of us. She would even sometimes make Isis her own eggs in the morning for breakfast. She was definitely a safe place for us in what became a challenging year.

Since graduating Isis and I have gotten to travel quite a bit. Isis had her first plane ride when we flew to Arizona to get help at the Mayo Clinic. She experienced cactus’ for the first time and discovered that they are not something you want to get too close to. She drove to Stanford to be there for the several days I was admitted to the hospital for testing. She helped move Haley into college in Arizona and even got to go to the Grand Canyon. We flew to Ohio to see a specialist and had some fun nights in the hotel. We got to travel to Washington D.C. to go to a POTS conference. We visited the White House, Arlington Cemetery, the spy museum, the Holocaust Museum, The Smithsonian, and the Natural History Museum. We went on a road trip while in D.C. and went to several east coast states making sure to get out of the car at each one. We went to the Hershey factory and had wonderful ice cream at a dairy in rural Pennsylvania. We have been to Bend several times and gotten to play in the snow a few times. We even got to go back to visit in L.A. and went to Disneyland. Isis got her Minnie ears, posed in front of the castle, and even got to ride a few rides (Dumbo, Its a Small World, Jungle Cruise).

Isis has become a part of life at home too. My parents (Grandma and Grandpa) have been wonderful in accepting her and from the first time they met her they fell in love. My sisters took a bit longer to adjust to me having a service dog but now they are amazing aunties who Isis adores. Isis has loved going with me to my mom’s elementary school classroom and getting read to by the kids. She adores all the attention and excitement from the kids each time she arrives. She has loved (or at least put up with) our team Halloween costumes and tolerates me dressing her up for each holiday. She has even been an wonderful big sister to her little brother, Apollo, that is in training to take over for her when she retires.

Isis has been there for doctors appointments and procedures too numerous to count. She has come to visit and lift my spirits many times when I have been in the hospital. She has laid in bed beside me when I just need time to rest and has been there to cuddle when I need her close. She has been my almost constant companion since the day I got her.

As Isis has gotten older she has begun to slow down. These days she much prefers to take several naps a day and eat whenever possible. She loves eye rubs and snuggles and occasionally still plays with her favorite Sven toy. She is the most wonderful, loudest snoring, bed hog and I can’t believe that I ever had a life before her. Isis saved me seven years ago and has continued to do so everyday since. She is my best friend and safety net. Thanks Isis for an EXCEPTIONAL seven years, here’s to many more!! Happy Birthday and Teamiversary my beautiful, chunky girl.

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