This is the story of a 16 year old girl that now relies on the help of her service dog. Once she was a dancer, student council member, violinist and at the top of her class. But with her medical condition progressing now she takes her lessons online.
She suffers from epilepsy and is depended on the help of her parents, nurses, medications and her dog Flynn. She has said that in order to get a service dog you must be disabled to a point where normal function activities become a struggle.
To prepare a dog become what we call a service dog requires two years and thousands of dollars if you hire a professional to do the training. A dog that is considered a service dog can go everywhere his handler goes with a few exceptions such as a church or specific federal buildings.
The job of a service dog and the quality of it is crucial to its human. And this is why this 16 year old girl is pleading with strangers to make them understand that it is not okay to pet her dog without her permission.
She got the dog when he was just a tiny pup and not only does he help her on a daily basis but he provides a lot of love as well.
Her medical conditions include epilepsy, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, reactive hypoglycemia, severe allergies, gastroparesis, and asthma.
The dog does a great job helping especially with one of her conditions, which is seizures. He can actually detect when she is about to have one, giving her the chance to find a safe spot and seek help.
One time, while she was visiting her dad at his work place a co-worker of him reached to pet the dog as he found him very cute. Even though the dog had a vest on that clearly says ‘Stop’, that did not stop the co-worker. It is not okay to pet a service dog while he is working because it distracts him.
In the past while other people where petting the dog, she was about to have a seizure when the dog got the chance to notify her. While normally he warns her about 10 minutes before, this time there was no time and she went into seizure immediately.
These are rug burns caused from the seizures.
She can not stress this enough. The dog is literally her life system support and if he gets distracted she can even die. So please, do not pet service dogs and do not call to service dogs. Simply do nothing when you see a service dog.
It is true that for animal lovers the first impulse when they see a dog is to pet him. But we have to be attentive and be able to tell the difference between a pet and service dogs. And if it results to be a service dog, leaving him alone, is the best thing we can do.
