MCS Awareness in Form of Medical Alert Training for Multiple Disability Service Dogs

MCS is not just for thirty-one days- it's a 365 day a year variable disease that one lives with and finds ways to cope with and reduce reactions. Its a disease of abstinence of the triggers and parts of life that can and often will bring on symptoms from mild to profound. This is a disease I have lived with for over a decade in the severe to profound form and at least another decade in milder form- not to mention the triggers I can remember from as far back as age 9 and 10. Thanks to my friend Sharon at After Gadget, I learned what this was and how to help myself be as healthy as I can be.

My previous service dog, Chimette (AKA Met) began to naturally alert me when I was getting into trouble. Once this began, fine tuning his alert and follow through saved me many times from severe reactions. When he died, I lost much more than a guide, hearing, and service dog. My MCS stability tanked out. I knew what I had with Met was something very special. Its rare to have a dog who works really effectively for two disabilities let alone to encompass four areas. That all said, I had to live my life believing it would happen again- for after all if I didn't have that hope, what kind of life was ahead for me in finding stability again.

Thane has turned out to be an awesome guide dog, a good service dog, but in the other areas as a hearing dog and medical alert dog for MCS, my hopes were waning. Some of it could be in strategy and training approach. Its a whole different thing to train a dog who is not naturally alerting first to actually alert and follow through than it is to just fine tune and train the follow through phase for MCS alerts.

Some people laugh when they hear me say that a Border Collie is a born guide dog but not so much as a hearing dog. Thane has overcome a lot in the time with me including some intense intervals of sound reactivity. Met was also sound reactive so I don't believe this plays a roll. I have come to terms with the aspect that Thane may very well never make an indoor hearing dog- drat that ball obsession! Its OK and I can get along with other alerting mechanisms in the home. Its certainly not quite as reliable as a hearing dog- but for now, I've taken the pressure off of both of us by tabling this type of training. I once felt the same way about retrieve however and he is now an awesome retriever. Training is not over until the last breath he takes.

Another reason for tabling hearing dog training is that recently I have realized that Thane has become more alert to problems in the environment for me. Where this has really shown up is with smokers that are walking ahead of us, waiting at bus stops, or nearby. Just as I had to do with guide dog training, I am having to learn to trust my dog when he slows down dramatically, speeds up, or chooses a different spot than our usual place to wait for the bus or max. I got myself a hefty reinforcement of this one day last week when I did not trust in Thane's judgment. I thought he was just fooling around and gave him commands which in fact ignored his attempt at alerting me. I paid for disregarding Thane's attempt because I had an older mask on that did not block as completely the toxins around me. That nasty whiff of cigarette smoke was the best thing that could have happened to show me that Thane had a good reason for what he was doing.

Alert training for MCS is much different than other Medical Alert task training. It is trained a lot along the lines of scent training, but with one HUGE difference. The goal in training this for MCS is not for the dog to take you towards the scent but away from. In my situation as a deafblind individual in a wheelchair, the situation does not always allow for my dogs to get me out of the area immediately. Often times the best approach is one where my dog halts and we wait for a bit while the offender/ offensive smell leaves our vicinity as opposed to us increasing our speed and thus me being exposed even more so to the trigger.

In time, I have no doubt that Thane will  alert and follow through on my MCS triggers just as effectively as he traffic checks me when drivers try to run us down.

MCS is and always will be until a cure is found a big part of my life. Some days I feel pretty well considering where I have come from- nearly bed ridden when Sharon began her education and support with me, but all it takes is one bad exposure to lower my resistance and bring on the symptoms like what I have been dealing with since this weekends rude neighbor marathon burning episode.

I am just grateful that Thane is beginning the path towards becoming my Medical Alert dog. Its an amazing feeling to have my perception of his capability proven wrong.

The little Redhead from Indiana

So now that I shared who Met was- where he came from- what he became to me, its time to share about Thane. After all this blog really is his. smile

Thane is one of four puppies born to Scarlet and Finn, both red and white Border Collies out of Indiana. He spent the first nine months of his life as Shane; living with his mom and co-breeder amidst their varied pack of dogs- from toy to giant breed.

Following the passing of Met, he came to live with me in the hopes of becoming my future service dog. The trip from Indiana to Oregon, was tumultuous at best for this Indiana country boy. He had so many changes to adjust to- no longer part of a pack as the low man in it, he became the solitary dog in his new home life. From country to town where just the presence of regular traffic flow was something to be in awe of- he had a lot of adjusting to go through.

Re-named Thane- a type of noble man in the Shakespearean era, this little red and white smooth coat boy, had a long way to go before fulfilling his name.

For me, it was a huge eye opening experience to witness just how much I had at one time taught his predecessor- Thane was close to that of a blank slate. He had, for the most part, pretty awesome household manners and behavior for such a young Border Collie. What he had in manners however, he lacked in training. It was going to be up to me to either make or break him as a potential guide and service dog. Only time would tell though which way this was going to go.

At first, the most we really accomplished were the very basics of obedience training amidst the constant reminders that this little redhead was anything but my Met. He had different mannerisms, different likes and dislikes, different pluses and minuses. He was definitely NOT my dog that I so desperately missed and wanted the void of to be filled in the snap of my fingers.

At first, Thane's real role was that of keeping me busy and giving me someone- something that needed me and my care. I will admit, his early life here was anything but stress free as I wrestled with what I sorta coin *my demons* in the journey of letting go of Met and accepting him for who he was and could become to me. This was anything but an easy process.

I suffered from what is often known as *second dog syndrome*. It is that difficult condition, if you will, of relinquishing your first dog and journey with it- allowing oneself to accept, bond with, and work with the new and often times very different successor candidate. It was the letting go of the innocence one had as they trained, bonded, worked, and lost their first service dog and allowed that self to move on with the lessons of yesterday without allowing them to overshadow the joy and good in what lay ahead.

When one can come to such a *letting go* and *moving forward* in the journey of the bonding process- allowing themselves growth as a trainer and handler in the process towards a successor partnership, amazing things can and often do flourish.

I will be the first to admit that Thane is no Chimette. There may never be again in my life, that magical kind of partnership, bond and love that I had with my first special man. Thane though is very special in his own ways. He is an awesome guide dog when his energy is not busting out his seams. Living in an apartment in rain central USA does not do much for energy expenditure. I've learned to give him the long walks to stores in town or to the bus so that he can expend that energy and thus be more effective in that crucial *crowd* work we often encounter.

Most people recognize Border Collies as awesome hearing dogs, but are quite surprised by a guide dog of the same breed. Thane is an interesting specimen for sure. To date, he has turned out to be a much more responsive guide dog than he may ever be as a hearing dog for me. All of this of course came as quite a surprise to me after my previous dog was just so good at everything along the progressive path of my disabilities over our years together.

Met was very much in the game for what he could do for me. He loved his job- sometimes too much. Thane on the other hand, is very much a guide dog in that same light but when it comes to indoor tasks in his obsessive toy environment of our home life, it becomes very much one of *what can I get out of doing this task for her*. I will admit, its not necessarily the kind of work ethic one wants for a multi-disability, multi-environment needed service dog, but at this stage of the game- it works for us because of just how toy obsessed Thane happens to be. I guess in some ways that little obsession of his, is a good thing. LOL Do I wish he had a little more the ethic of his predecessor- sure, but then there is probably a lot of things that he is for me, that he just might not be.

I had said at one point following Met's passing that I never wanted to depend on a dog so much again that in their absence I could not function. Perhaps Thane's gift to me is just that- making me keep my promise to myself that he would never become the *only* functional tool I could live my life by.

For now, I am just grateful for those wonderful people in Indiana who had the ability in their hearts to let go of the little redhead they had raised for the first nine months of his life. For without them and their generosity, my life today would be a very different one. Thane truly was and is a gift- one I hope I never become so accustomed to that I take advantage of what he does for me.

Christie Keith on Border Collies

I just had to share this awesome article that Christie Keith wrote as a columnist for the SF Gate. It says everything I have been trying to convey here about the versatility of the breed, but in a much better way!

For those who do not know Christie Keith, she writes for Pet Connection blog, Your Whole Pet for the SF Gate, at one point was the list owner of the Beyond Vaccination list on yahoogroups, and has a lot of awesome common sense when it comes to our dogs health needs as seen on her website.

Hope you all enjoy the article, The Smartest Dogs in the World as much as I did.

What I Feel, He Reveals

If there's anything I appreciate about my Border Collie boys, it is that they have made me a better trainer and handler because of who they are/ were by making me aware of my own state of mind, stress level, and tension.

Throughout the service dog community forums, one topic that comes up frequently is how our emotions travel down the leash to our dogs. In my opinion, this effect can't be seen better in any other breed than the Border Collie.

Many dogs let changes in their handlers dispositions or emotions just roll right off of them- be it tension, illness, emotional variations from sad to angry; elated to calm. This however isn't the case of every dog partnered with a disabled handler. Our service dogs vary from soft to hard in both methods of training and how they handle the events of life. These events include the emotions, we as trainers and handlers, send down the lead- often times things we are totally unaware of unless our dogs tension and relaxation status in harness fluctuates from one day to the next- or even from one moment to another in extreme situations.

Both of my boys have been soft dogs. Though in most situations I can without a doubt say that Met was the softer of the two, there are circumstances where this is so *not the case*. Those circumstances revolve around what I am sending down the lead to Thane.

In our first year together, life was anything but smooth or stress free. First, I was grieving the loss of a decade long partnership with the most awesome service dog. Second, I was learning to adapt to my progressive disabilities without Met's assistance. Finally, I was trying to get to know this new kid on the block who was definitely *NOT* Met. One can only imagine the emotions that I was giving off as I tried to figuratively put one foot in front of the other while trying to teach this bouncy, energetic, nine month old country transplant that a leash and walking on it loosely was a concept he *MUST* get *YESTERDAY*. I was anything but calm and collected and it showed in him.

Those early months are a blurr quite honestly. We somehow got through those nightmarish times of training Thane to go busy on lead, LLW, direction training for guide work, and were able to move onto harness work. I continued to set our partnership back, however, through my roller coaster grief, expectations, and tensed up leash communications at best. Though I would not have wanted to be going it alone dogless, I know (thanks to hindsite) that I shared way too much negative energy down the lead in our process to become a team.

I would work with Thane one day and have a positively awesome experience. He would be pulling into harness at a perfect tension for my needs; walking and guiding smoothly as we went along. It would seem we had finally arrived. We might have this kind of experience for a day or two or if we were really lucky, a week. Then with no reason at all, or so it seemed, we would be ten paces back. It would be a struggle to walk one block at a comfortable harness tension. I was quite honestly baffled at the changes in Thane. I just could not get my head around these bizarre differences. It was like there were two versions of him and I never knew each day as we rolled out the front door which version of him I would be working with.

I was scanning two books for Bookshare at the time. Canine Adventures, Fun Things to Do with Your Dog, and Shock to the System. Both of these books had areas devoted to stress. Shock to the System especially had me questioning my own status, not just Thanes. When we would have a rough patch of training or work, I began to check in with myself. What I mean by this is that I would do a check on just how I was feeling and especially reacting- physically, emotionally, stress-wise. What I discovered more times than not, when Thane was *off-kilter* as I began calling these high strung times, it was directly linked to some aspect of my own being.

Though it has not always been easy for me to let things roll off my back, for our partnership, I strove to learn how to do just that. In this process, I have become a better trainer and handler by quite literally seeing what I was feeling. Thane has essentually been a guide through more than just my blindness. He has taught me how to be healthier by letting the things go that just are not important enough to hold onto. He has, in his simple Border Collie way, set me free from myself, allowing us to have a partnership where I see a reflection of myself revealed in red and white.

Going Against the Grain

I work with and love the Border Collie breed. When I trained my first service dog Chimette, a Border Collie Shepherd cross who looked and acted very much Border Collie, I focused initially on training him to be my ears in the world. As a result, no one thought twice or made any comment whatsoever along the lines of whether or not he was the right breed for the job. As my disabilities progressed, Chimette was trained as a guide dog, hearing dog, medical alert dog, and mobility service dog. No one over all the years we were training or partnered together made so much as a comment about his fitness for the job at hand based upon his breed- perhaps because he was first a hearing dog.

When Chimette passed away though, things were very different for me. I had a host of disabilities to adapt to and the need to prioritize where to focus my training first when Thane came into my life. Though we dabbled in hearing dog training during those first winter months together that kept us from doing a lot of training in the community, the first focus of training was to mold Thane into my guide dog.  Thane is a purebred Border Collie from strong herding lineage. In my pursuit of guide dog training and the partnership that has followed, I encountered so many mystified people. People were often surprised that I was going against his natural instincts to mold him into my future guide. It was more rare to encounter people who were not surprised by this decision of mine than to encounter those who were. Some of these folks, like his Ophthalmologist, were just downright curious while others just had to voice their opinions about how insensitive I was being to Thane by asking him to curtail his natural instincts. Not so fast! Thane's natural instincts are part of what makes him the perfect candidate for the job. 

As a deafblind individual my dogs training is dramatically different than that of a guide dog trained for a blind individual with normal hearing. I allow my guides a certain amount of leniency in focus. I do this by encouraging their awareness of important things with praise, while simply ignoring or using our leave it command for things that are unnecessary alerts. The crux is that they need to not only safely guide me around obstacles and through traffic, but they need to share with me the important things going on around us wherever we may be. I want to know, for instance, if someone is walking close behind us or if kids are playing on the sidewalk ahead so we can alter our pace, take another route, or change our direction entirely for safety reasons. I want to know when emergency vehicles are coming so that I don't get caught crossing a street when they are in route to an emergency. Though all of this training does not happen initially, praising for his alertness to important cues can be the difference between safe travels as a team and injury or  becoming the victim of a predator. Chimette saved me from a stalker who actually turned around and raped another person. Where would I have been then if all I had asked of my dog was to guide me around obstacles, but ignored my deafness in his training? I positively love my dogs alertness to his environment. Breed appropriateness for the task at hand is all in ones perspective.

Change of Plans

The sun was finally shining here in the Pacific Northwest. I had big plans for the day. After placing some necessary orders for our monthly needs, we were gonna head out for a long overdo adventure. Well, that was the plan, but sometimes plans get interrupted. 

Thane was bothered during the night so we had to readjust our plans for the day. A bath instead of an adventure and our first splendid order to Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow is going to have to wait to ship until this monstrocity of a storm across the nation decides to die down. If I have learned anything through my life with two sensitive Border Collie guides, it is that life can be unpredictable, deliver punches you had not expected, and you just have to learn to go with the flow.

Rather than a fun trip out and about, I was lathering up Thane in a nice blend of shampoo and conditioner- something he was not very fond about taking place. From there it was domestic tasks, further orders, and being grateful for a company that considers the weather before shipping out our perishable goods.

Though we were not able to venture out today, the beautiful sunshine beaming through our door uplifted the spirits of days past brought on by this excessively wet winter. One step outside however and the chill made me grateful that a needed bath had changed our day from one of adventures to one of home necessities.

Now we await our goodie box (if the weather lets up)!

Happy Woofday My Lil' Man

Today my wonderful sidekick, Thane is 4 Woofdays Old. It just does not seem like this could be possible- like has time really flown that fast? I have to admit though that despite some of our ups and downs, lately I feel like I am working more with a seasoned guide than the *green* dog of earlier times. 

It's comfortable- the way we walk together as one unit flowing almost seamlessly.  The way we often read each others' minds reminds me of the latter years working with his predecessor. Tthe faith I now have and feel in Thane- well it is a special kind of feeling to realize that no matter what is going on, how he or you are feeling, that he knows your life is in his hands and there is nothing to fear. I can say that because I have total confidence in the training I have put into him.

So one might ask what you give a four year old Border Collie who loves to play, play, play- well more toys of course! We slept in this morning, played hookie from life to play with new toys, and welcomed eight new puppies into the world- OK we did that welcoming last night when we learned his co-breeders, now breeding independently again, had a litter of healthy frisky Border Collie puppies yesterday- 6 Boys and 2 Girls. 

And NO, Thane IS NOT getting a puppy for his woofday! LOL

All this fun and kidding aside, leaves me reflecting on the training and aging process. I know there will be a day in not too many more years, when it will be time to start thinking about youth again. For now though I want to just basque in the enjoyment of working with a more seasoned guide that I totally trust.

Seeing Life Through Thane's Eyes

My life outside my home is experienced through the eyes and ears of my guide Thane, just as it was through Chimette, his predecessor. Sometimes our outings are simple errands, grocery shopping or the like- the mundane responsibilities anyone is accustomed to performing. For us, even these excursions are far from mundane. Nothing is ever the same twice especially for a team consisting of a wheelchair user and a Border Collie guide.  

As a wheelchair guide team, we not only require more space to work, but more often than not people treat me as sighted despite being told I am blind or seeing the harness sign on Thane's guide handle stating he is a working guide dog. Thane has quite the job to keep me safe as a result of this. People have come to recognize individuals in wheelchairs are partnered with service dogs, so when one is partnered with a guide dog, they just can't wrap their heads around it all. This stereotypical view can often lead to more intense obstacle clearance work in Thane's job due to another misconception people have- that wheelchairs can stop instantaneously. There's nothing instantaneous about a wheelchairs stopping ability.

Most of the routes we take I could do in my sleep, but I'd certainly not try that in real life! With Thane at the helm, my lack of peripheral vision is no problem at all. He knows when a driver is too impatient to wait for us- blocking my path so I don't become a casualty of them getting up too late. The world to most is in a 3-D view, for me its as flat as a picture in a coloring book- devoid of depth. With the spotty vision I have, I can't tell you if what I am seeing is one inch in front of me or three feet ahead, let alone what the item I am seeing actually is. With a visual disease on a progressive path that has the appearance of a puzzle with mostly missing pieces, I'm very grateful to have a dog with Thane's skills as I head out the door each day.

It was not always easy with him. Issues of transplanting from the country to a small town but with obligations in larger cities played its toll. Several times we had to take a step back. In weaker moments, I wondered if either of us were meant to create this partnership. When the fog lifted though, I saw a sidekick at the helm that was every bit as capable as Met had been and then some. His ability to safely guide me through life left Met's pawprints in the dust long ago. Its really great to experience life through my Border Collies eyes.

You might be asking yourself what it's like to see through a guide's eyes. Imagine being on an agility course all day long consisting mostly of weave poles that angle this way and that combined with abrupt pauses with no previous knowledge of the course layout as it is forever changing. That's what Thane's job entails. For Thane, he sees the changes taking place, for me it can be disorienting in the best of times. 

Every person who stops abruptly or cuts us off so closely that its a wonder they don't get run over, every garbage can dumped across the sidewalk by the collectors, every yard maintenance crew that opts to place their yard debris on the sidewalk of all places, every child's toy not properly put away, every congregating group of people awaiting a bus or ride that seem to think we can squeeze through in half the space we actually need, every cart abandoned across the sidewalk or left in the middle of a store aisle, every person that stops right past the doorway leaving Thane to block me so we do not get caught by the electric doors- all of these and more create obstacles in our life. You may say, well all of those are obstacles for me as well. Can you imagine then the task for Thane and myself working as a team to navigate life where so many are lets put it frankly, thoughtless in how their actions can affect others. Without Thane its a constant game of bumper cars for sure! 

Sometimes, Thane is able to move so gracefully this way and that around the obstacles that lay before us that it truly feels like we are dancing through life. These are the memorial moments of life and our partnership- the breeze brushing through our hair on a beautiful spring day- feeling stress free and a sense of perfection in the cadence we move with each other. This for sure, takes time, bonding, and working past the *green* phase of a new partnership- but just as it happened in my partnership with Met, so has it with Thane. There were times when I doubted I would ever get this with Thane. There were times when I forgot just how tumultuous the early partnership with Met had been. It actually took friends to remind me that there were rough patches before the seasoned days of working as though our minds were interconnected. But now I am able to see life once more through the eyes of my guide and I don't want this dance to ever end.

When the Gear You Need Doesn't Exist

I thought I would continue along the thought pattern of *Decisions* and talk about my decision to make my own gear.

Most manufacturers (and that includes those who make equipment for service dogs) focus on the typical breed builds of more robust chests, typical height dogs which I had, but shorter length dogs, and the list could go on. The first time working with a Border Collie, I tried from time to time to buy gear that was available, but the end result was always the same- it would fit in one area, but not another; it would rotate as we worked causing inconsistencies in the guidance from Met, but also led to red skin or sores and frankly I found it so infuriating to spend good money on gear that they assured would fit him only to have to pad it, add straps to it, put the coat on under the harness because it was so full chested it would fall off, or to be fed up and toss it aside for another solution.

I love to sew. I figured if I could not find what I needed on the market, why not just make it myself. At first I tried my hand at more precise modifications of existing gear but realized that still held me within certain constraints, though this brought about a nice training harness. I began to purchase the supplies I needed to experiment with. One of the first harness and pack setups I made for Met, worked absolutely like a dream! It never rotated and gave us the ability to work well as a team in the earlier stages of my eye disease. As my eye disease progressed however, changes were needed in his gear. I never really settled on a good solution again- not like what we had for those few years anyway. Though, one of the last harnesses we worked with was purchased for our use, it too required padding and other modifications. I dreamed of using my creativity to design once more the equipment we needed for both my needs and his structure. Unfortunately time ran out for Met, but not my desire to make custom equipment for my agile built Border Collies.

Fast forward to the entrance of Thane. He was a 9 month old full of energy and strong will when he came into my life. Needing to focus more on him and his training than sewing, I opted against sewing for him initially. I bought several harnesses trying to find one that would fit. The no-pull harnesses had a big issue, if it fit his girth, it did not fit his chest depth (not by a longshot) Though I found a harness we could live with for the short term while he was still filling out, it still had drawbacks that made it really clear to me that designing my own gear was not only going to be an enjoyable part of this partnership, but also very much a necessity. Through trial and error over a couple of years, I finally had a good British style guide harness for Thane and I to work with. What I really needed however, with the continued deterioration of my vision, was a good American style harness where the handle could pass through loops that limit its movement some to allow clearer guiding from Thane. Its taken a lot of experimentation, but I finally managed to design the perfect harness we need in order to continue working effectively. Of course, a re-design of his raincoat was also required after pulling this off.

When I look back at all the gear, training equipment, disability equipment and the like that I have made over the past decade in training and working with my Border Collie boys, all I can say is boy I am glad I have the desire, the ability and the creativity to pull this off. It's sad to me that manufacturers are so narrow-minded in their development of gear for working dogs that dogs like Met and Thane would be left to work in ineffectual gear had it not been for my ability to intervene.

Why I Chose a Border Collie for My Guide Dog

Recently there was an Assistance Dog blog Carnival. I thought I would write on the Decisions topic to start off my blog.

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As a deafblind incomplete quad my view of the world is obscured by reduced sensory input. I'm one of the lucky ones though. The things many might just dream of, I get to experience through the eyes of Thane. Thane, a red and white Border Collie, is my guide dog. 

If you know anything about Border Collies, you're probably thinking the same thing the rest of the world does- a hearing dog perhaps- but a guide dog, isn't that going against their very instincts?

Besides the fact that Thane is in-training to also become my hearing dog, breed instincts can be very beneficial to me in a guide. As a herder, Thane is much more apt to glance one way or the other when people are around, or there are events out of the ordinary. It's not to a level of distraction that would wash a dog out for my needs, but it gives me insights into the world around me that a cane and tactile mini guide could never provide. It makes the world crisp instead of like that of a flat object. This glancing to and fro, is part of a herding dogs make up and most especially noticeable in a dog like Thane who comes from strong herding lineage. 

An additional great asset I have come accustomed to in my Border Collie guides is the ability to backtrack so easily. I have never had to train this, but the advantage with my disabilities is just awesome!  I frequently get disoriented. It can come on due to MCS, vertigo or simply a loss of proprioception. With Thane at my side, I never have to worry about the outcome. He will never fail to stand by me in this manner, by simply finding our way back. Sometimes this means finding the way home by travelling safely along a known route without the direction cues most guides are accustomed to receiving. Sometimes it occurs in a store or mall requiring Thane to find the exit and not just any exit either. Sometimes just getting me to the max or bus stop is all thats needed. 

Though other breeds can learn to do what Thane does for me, I have the most confidence in his breed to give me the hearing and guide dog skills I require to flourish as an independent spirited person.

Of course, it helps that I love the breed! I have ever since we had a BC mix when I was a child. To me, there was never any question what breed of dog I would train when I took on the task of owner training. They take a lot more accuracy in training (or living with the consequences), they learn at lightening speed (so be careful when you click), they can have a stubborn streak (now how can that be an asset? really it can!), they bond intently with their person, but need an experienced trainer who understands the mind of a Border Collie. I'm getting to be the latter thanks to my two Border Collie boys: Met, Thane's predecessor and Thane have taught me all about the Do's and Don'ts in training and working this breed. 

And every time I begin to contemplate another breed for a successor, I find myself coming back to my love for working this breed- no matter how difficult the process has been to get where I have. There is just nothing like a Border Collie!