It wasn’t until my primary care doctor suggested that maybe I should look into getting a service dog. He said a service dog could help me get around the house better and do some of the harder daily tasks like getting the phone when it fell to the ground or retrieve an item from a lower shelf in the cabinets, maybe even open the refrigerator door allowing more room and access for my wheelchair.

My life really changed after getting in touch with Happy Tails. It was then that my closed in, boxed in life all of a sudden, opened up. Happy Tails had weekly classes that made me get out of my apartment and start interacting with other people whose situations were similar to mine. I learned the importance of having a service dog and how to train her to do several tasks I had not even thought of. Each and every step of training was thorough, precise and at my speed of learning. I was now responsible for feeding, exercising, taking my dog out to go potty and playing with her every day. To do all this it required me to get out of bed instead of just lying there.

Because of the whole interaction of having a service dog and the training that Happy Tails helped me and my dog with, I now have a life again. I am almost the old me. Naya helps me with the extra things I needed to be more independent in my daily life activities. Happy Tails was the main key to opening the lock of withdrawal I had put on my life. Opening that lock gave me back a sense of purpose and pleasure.