Big Shoes (Paws) to Fill - New Service Dog

It is not clear to me what the various feeds pick up. I know that my Amazon blog is not picking up the video but I'm not sure about these pictures. If you can't see the pictures just click on the link to the blog it's from and it will take you to where you can see the pictures.

This is Tonka (yellow lab, named because he is the biggest and most fun of the litter), who is 9 weeks old. He is going to become Billy Ray's service dog when he is about six months old. We are going to visit him this weekend.

This time we are going to do things a little different because of Billy Ray's health and my schedule. The breeder (whose name and contact information I will reveal when she is ready for that) is going to do more of the basic training before I start working with Billy Ray and Tonka at about six months old. As I have been taking notes and talking to the breeder about what is important in terms of training, I have been thinking about what Billy Ray (and all of us) has gained from his dogs and what we have learned.

Dogs have been important to Billy Ray. His first experience with a dog was in foster care before we adopted him at 15 months old. He was a little much for my older poodle on placement so the veterinarian selected five month old Katie for him.

Together Katie and Billy Ray, then about 4 years old, went through basic dog obedience training and he learned how to handle her pretty well. He had her from the time she was 5 months old until about 14 years old. She was a pet not a service dog but she made a real difference in his life.

As Katie was aging, I began to look at a replacement. I looked into the idea of a service dog but couldn't find appropriate trainers. Somehow I found Dana PawsAbilities in northern Washington state. Her organization is primarily obedience training not a service dog trainer but she took time on the phone to give me tips for making it work. I remember the first thing she advised me to figure out was what jobs the dog would be expected to do for Billy Ray. I don't know why Dana didn't get impatient with me given it wouldn't benefit her business but she was always helpful.

Thanks to Dana's help and Carolyn Jones, 4-H leader and friend, who found us what was to become the perfect service dog for Billy Ray, we had several good years with Sheba. We took Sheba almost everywhere with Billy Ray. His support staff took her with him to his school program and other activities. The picture below is my favorite - he is shredding papers at Silver Falls School District Office and she is right there comforting him.

Unfortunately, Sheba, while perfect for Billy Ray had one flaw, she loved to chase cars along our fence when they drove onto the neighbors property. She injured her leg. We treated it for a long time and it was felt that surgery wouldn't help. Eventually she couldn't work with Billy Ray but remained a pet until there was nothing else that could be done to keep her comfortable and we put her down.

Enter Penny Lane who was in foster care with Heartland Weim Rescue and we heard about her through our friends Cliff and Shela Nielsen . Through a chain of events and the fact we had a friend's son coming home from college in Olathe, KS and could transport her Penny Lane came to be Billy Ray's next service dog. She was the dog no one wanted and was at risk of being put down because she had problems with her ears and was partially deaf. I had provided similar care to Katie when she had problems with her ears so was not frightened away from Penny Lane. However, what I didn't realize was that Katie was well trained before her ears became and issue and we needed to provide more extensive training to Penny Lane because she was a service dog whereas Katie had been a pet. Training for Penny Lane has not been very successful and she has become much more of a pet than a service dog.

However, Penny Lane has contributed to Billy Ray and to me in ways I could have never trained her to do. We got her about a year before Billy Ray had the health crisis and ventilator episode shared previously. When he began go through breathing changes which have never been thoroughly diagnosed but he appears to literally stop breathing and Penny Lane somehow senses it and comes to get me. I can sleep because I trust her to monitor it. I wrote about it here .

Below is a picture that shows the relationship between the two. He doesn't really want her to sleep on the bed because she lays on the covers and he can turn over as well. However, this one morning he was dressed and went back to bed and crawled up beside him on his other pillow. He covered her up and fortunately this was one of those Kodak momemts I didn't miss.

As a rescue dog her exact age was a guess. It was suggested that she might be 2 years old but our vets have suggested she was probably 4-5 years old when we got her nearly 5 years ago. She has had multiple health issues the entire time but she has been manageable. Her weight has been a constant struggle and it was just believed that Billy Ray gave her too many bites (which he does) but it was finally discovered that she has a thyroid problem and we have been treating that. However, recent tests performed show that she has liver issues as well. She is being treated for both and is on a special diet for the liver issues. Her vet advised that we would probably be able to maintain her another year but two years was stretching it.

Thus, it seemed time to consider a new service dog. There are now service dog agencies that we could work with but because it is used a specific way for Billy Ray and I want to work with it myself, we are going through a breeder we know. I hope to share on pictures and video blogging when we get started training.

Until next time,

Peggy Lou Morgan

for a complete list of my blogs and sites see www.peggyloumorgan.com

Our Latest News 4/6/09

Hi Everyone:


There is a lot going on right now and I have wanted to touch bases with you for a while.

First, Billy Ray is somewhat the same as when I last posted. He still fights chronic pancreatitis but we are learning to anticipate pain and catch it as early as possible so he doesn't need the stronger medications for pain. The surgery (Nissan) done in September 2006 which sort of fixed his high degree of acid reflex was checked last week and still in place but he is getting reflux again and it is the cause of periodic choking episodes.

He has good news and bad on the service dog front. The present service dog is experiencing health problems of her own and will have to be replaced within the next year. I have ordered a Yellow Lab puppy which he will get at the end of summer and we will start training her to work with him.


Parenting an Adult with Disabilities or Special Needs seems to be getting pretty good reviews already. I am truly pleased by them. Here are two: Autism Learning Felt and Specialchildrenabout.com .

Thanks to Amazon, I am able to combine the feeds for my blogs in one. If you'd like to read all the recent posts for this blog and Parenting a Complex Adult you can go to the Amazon blog and get them in one location.

Until next time,
Peggy Lou Morgan
www.peggyloumorgan.com for a complete list of sites

We're Still Here - 12/1/08

Hi All:

I feel a bit out of touch with a lot of you. It has been hetic. For those of you who have written I'm recovering pretty well and back in the groove more and more. We are learning to deal with Billy Ray's chronic pancreatitis and doing better at managing his pain so that he is able to enjoy life so more.

Hard to imagine that Parenting An Adult with Disabilities or Special Needs: Everything You Need to Know to Plan for and Protect Your Child’s Future (AMACOM Books) is finally coming out in January. It seemed as if it was never going to happen and now it is next month. I am even more excited because several of the ideas are even more important than I knew when writing it because of all the budget cuts and economic things going on everywhere.

I have wanted to start video blog conversations with you for a long time. In the process of figuring out how it would work we had a computer crash and had to replace a computer and now Larry is trying to figure out how to get the video editing software to work on Vista - the new computer. I'm bugging him because I am anxious to talk to you.

While the new book has much to do with adults and transition planning there are many things that you can start soon. For example, I wished I had started the form of Chronological History that I talked about in Parenting Your Complex Child (AMACOM Books 2006) much younger. The same applies to many of the skills I am teaching Billy Ray now to have his own home (as soon as we can get him more medically stable). I hope to video blog him learning new things when we get the video working.

Finally, I have gotten opportunities to communicate with lots more people through other communities on the internet which is thrilling. I am going to do posts introducing those to you within the next couple of days.

Until next time,
Peggy Lou Morgan
for a complete list of blogs and websites check out my primary website

Catching Up...5/09/06

I wanted to share a little of the past week with you and try to catch up. Several of you have written to me wanting to know how Billy Ray is so I wanted to update you on that too.

Billy Ray has been recovering somewhat from the pancreatitis but still complains of pain. Apparently part of it is the pain medication adds to his irregularity so he has been more constipated than normal. He also caught a cold and has been choking more with his acid reflux. I took him to see his medical provider, Brice Stanley, on Thursday. The cold seemed substantially better but his breathing was rattley and he was complaining of headache. Sure enough he has an ear infection. I was concerned about pneumonia so Brice ordered a chest x-ray based on my gut even though he couldn't hear it in his chest. When he showed me the x-ray he said "here's the bronchial stuff, you were right". This is one more example of how important it is to have the kind of relationship with your child's medical provider where he will listen to your "gut".

We have been treating him with an antibiotic and increasing the nebulizer treatments. He continues to be amazing. We know that he doesn't feel well but often wants to continue with his normal activities. Brice said that he isn't contagious so we have been able to allow him to do what he feels like doing.

On Saturday our church LaPine Grace Fellowship hosted a reception at the Fireside Room of Bend Nazarene before my book signing at Barnes and Noble in Bend. I asked the specialist, Dr. Masterangelo, who is treating the pancreatitis what to do about Billy Ray's eating at the reception. He said that Billy Ray could have some of his favorite oatmeal cookies and light other things that day even though we are trying to keep him low fat to help the pancreatitis.

Donna, who we will lovingly call the "cookie lady" made them special for Billy Ray. There was a sign posted that said "Billy Ray's favorite". She used to make them for him every week to help with his regularity because they are so good in fiber. The work better than laxatives for him. We had to stop that because of his diabetes and now they are too high in fat for his pancreatitis. You can see by the picture he is very surprised to see that he can actually have one of his favorite cookies.


















I was pleased that he was able to attend the reception because this was the first of my events that he was able to attend.

We are going to be home for a while as far as I know.

When I did the interview with Alandra Johnson, for the article that appeared in the Bend Bulletin last week, I was surprised at how long it took me to answer her question about what is the best part of being Billy Ray's Mom. I wrote about that in today's Amazon Blog if you want to read it.

Until next time,
Peggy Lou Morgan
Amazon Blog
www.parentingyourcomplexchild.com
www.lighthouseparents.com
Yahoo Group