How Does He DO That?

   Wow. I'm absolutely blown away by the response to that last post. I NEVER in my wildest dreams thought that post would be viewed over 1,700 times! All I can say is thank you so much for caring about my little blog and wanting to spread the word on fake service dogs. I know Maine has passed a law, and I'm hoping Virginia will soon follow suit, that makes it a crime to pass off a pet as a service dog. If my story, and the stories of every other service dog partner, tugs at your heart I URGE you to contact your representative and ask for stricter laws on service dog certification. As a partner, I would much rather go through a strict certification test than be shopping in the mall and have a "service dog" growl or lunge at Zido and me.

   So for this post, I wanted to do something much lighter. Whenever I tell someone what Zido does for me, the number one question that is asked is "How the heck can he do that?" So I'm going to try to answer that here!

   For those of you just joining my blog, you can either head on over to my first blog post (please excuse the sloppy writing; I was just a newbie...) but here's a more in-depth overview:

   In 2004, I started getting sick every three months with flu-like-symptoms and would have to be hospitalized for about a week at a time. My family was stationed in Japan at the time and would have to fly to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii (I know...bummer...) for testing every few months. After about a year of this, the Air Force had to move my family state-side for better medical services. That was in 2006 and was about the time I started losing consciousness. They thought that whatever disease I had was transitioning from these stomach symptoms to neurological symptoms, but had no idea as to why that was happening. For the next two or so years I would visit my lovely friends at Children's Hospital when eventually one of the top neurologists came to the conclusion that I have some kind of autonomic disorder (NOT autoimmune...VERY different). Of the known disorders, I have bits and pieces of each of them but don't fit perfectly into any one category. I've been to some of the best hospitals and have had teams of doctors work on me, but after about 8 years of it, that's about as far as we came. When I was getting ready to go to college, I told my parents I was done. I didn't want any more tests. I didn't want any more non-answers. I was fine with knowing nothing and knowing that it was never going to be cured because I was done. For the first year of college, I was okay with hiding it. Of course, my roommate and good friends knew, but I didn't want to be "that girl" so instead I told myself it didn't exist. I had actually been going unconscious less and less and really thought I was getting better. Maybe the doctors were wrong!

   In September of my sophomore year, right before I turned 20, it all went downhill. We don't know why, but I started going out very often and I was terrified. I had told myself I was getting better but turns out, God and my body had different plans. My parents and I talked about the options because I wanted to be independent, but I was scared what independence would bring. Later that year, my mom's best friend, Miss Michelle, (who is INCREDIBLY knowledgeable on service dogs) said she thought I would qualify for one. I started looking and found that for many organizations, you have to have a name for your disease in order for them to place you with a dog. Since I didn't have a name, I didn't qualify. Then Miss Michelle told us about Canine Partners for Life. She said they were one of the top organizations in the country and were only up in Pennsylvania, so my mom, sister, and I made an appointment for a tour and headed up about two weeks later. While we were there, I was told that I definitely qualified and was given the application to begin everything. What's crazy is that when I went on the tour of the kennel where all of the dogs were, Zido was in there but I never knew he would be "the one." Later in the year, after an in-depth application process and in-person interview Zido and I were paired together and we began training. This was totally a God-thing because the normal wait is at least a year, so to know that they had a dog for me so soon was just an absolute blessing. The decision to get a service dog was the ultimate decision to no longer hide what God had blessed me with. You can't hide an invisible disability when there's a 64 lb beacon next to you saying "Something's different about this girl!" but I've found a lot of peace in that decision. It's just a bonus that 64 lb beacon is the cutest dog in the world.

I mean seriously...look at that face!

   Now, fast-forward to what he does for me. So, Zido is able to smell my heart-rate. I know...it's crazy. Experts aren't sure what exactly it is that the dogs smell, but they think it's some hormone or something that I let off that he is able to detect. Now one thing is that you can't train a dog to be able to smell it. They either have the gene that can detect it or they don't. Professionals CAN train dogs for diabetes alert because that's a specific sweat thing, but for seizures and cardiac there's no training them for the smell. What they get trained for is what to do BECAUSE of what they smell.

   I like to tell people that my heart, as a muscle, is perfectly fine. It does what it needs to and no tests have shown that anything is wrong with it. What happens is my brain sends it the wrong signals. So basically my heart is correctly responding to the incorrect signals my brain is sending it. I generally have a fast heart-rate (about 85 bpm at resting), but when my brain tells my heart the wrong thing, my heart can climb up to about 140-160 bpm. For my body, it's at about that rate that I would normally pass out as a way for my system to kind of "reboot". That reboot process would take anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, and during that time my entire system shuts down. Zido keeps me from going out by alerting me anywhere from 110 bpm - 120 bpm. Once he alerts, I sit down or lay down (depending on what he wants) and wait for my heart to get back to normal.

   It took some time for Zido to learn my heart-rate because it's pretty fast for a healthy human, so he was alerting ALL the time when we first began. Now, however, he's learned "me" and knows "Okay NOW she needs to rest" and alerts much less frequently.

   He has a couple of different alerts depending on what he's trying to tell me, but to answer one of the top questions I get: no he does NOT ever bark to alert me. That's a big no-no so he's trained to alert in much more discreet ways. Each dog comes up with their own way of alerting when they're in training, but then when they get matched with their person, they kind of tweak their alerts to whatever works for their partner.

   For Zido and me, he normally starts by just straight-up going stubborn. What I mean by that is he just kind of does whatever I tell him NOT to do. For example, if I tell him to stand, he lays down. If he's down, he pops up. It was SUPER frustrating until I realized it's his way of saying "Hey something's not right and I need your attention." Then comes this really intense stare or a super deep lick on my hand. If I don't listen to that, and we're walking, he'll cut in front of me or wrap me in his leash to get me to stop walking. I normally catch the idea by this point, but let's just say Zido isn't afraid to try more intrusive means of alerting (he's totally gone up my dress and licked my leg because I wasn't paying attention. Oh and yes of course I was on a date in public. It was so embarrassing.) Once I get the message, I'll sit down wherever I am and Zido will pop a squat on top of me. If he wants me to lay down, he'll back his booty up against my chest to kind of push me down and then he'll lay on top of me and when he senses my heart-rate is stable, he'll pop up and we'll continue on our way.

The infamous alert. Zido's way of saying "Mom...stay."

    Zido's main job is to alert to cardiac, but as we've grown closer he's been able to alert to different things. When he wants me to know my blood pressure has dropped, he'll rub his face/nose on my leg or whatever body part he can get to. If we're walking, he'll knock the back of my knee with his head and then cut in front of me. His alerts for migraines are very similar to cardiac alerts, but those jump from a lick or stare straight to wrapping me in his leash. One time, he had been alerting me but my heart-rate was fine so I couldn't tell what it was. About 20 minutes later, while I was on my way home, a MASSIVE migraine hit. When I got home, he took off and literally grabbed my mom's arm. He's never done this before but when she let him lead, he took her straight to me at the door. A-MA-ZING.

   It's really hard to know exactly what he's alerting for since they are all very similar alerts, but the main thing I've learned is to just stop what I'm doing and sit down, because no matter what it is, I would rather be sitting and tip over than standing and fall. I don't care what he does when he alerts, as long as he does it (except barking of course!) He's been going above and beyond what I ever expected of a service dog and it makes me so over-the-moon excited to say he's kept me conscious for....drum roll please....

511 days!!!!!!!!!!!!

   Each dog is as different as each person, so none of this is one-size-fits-all. What I know is that it's been super cool and incredibly rewarding to learn Zido and his quirky ways. Everyone who's close to me has said how amazing it is to watch our partnership grow, and I can't believe we're already coming up on a year and a half together! Thank you all so much again for the love and support and I hope you stick around to learn more about my adventures with The Incredible Zee

   Up next on Zee and Me: "Top 10 Things NOT To Say To Someone With A Service Dog"

Love and blessings,
Zee and Me