Here are Jack and CAYLIE enjoying their day at Special Olympics in Cabarrus County. CAYLIE was the only service dog at the games, which surprised me.  Last year we saw one other.  There were so many children who were frightened because they were out of their routine and environment, but CAYLIE helped them cope with her love and patience. Jack had two events and received gold medals.  He was tickle ...

Jack and CAROLINE snuggle on the couch during our "snow" day on Friday.  We live in a wonderful county in North Caroline, but we sometimes have dry snow days.  It is good to be cautious I guess. CAROLINE is visiting for 6 days while her family (Nancy Kiger's) is out of town.  She is Jack's dog CAYLIE's sister from a different litter.  They look so much alike, that we have to check for CAROLINE's blue co ...

  Jack and CAYLIE spent Saturday afternoon and evening with our new friends Mergil and Lou. They are both fellows with the William C. Friday Fellowship.  Here is the link to their site: http://fridayfellowship.site-ym.com/. They asked to do a documentary about living with shaken baby syndrome and how our service dog has helped our Jack.  The foundation strives to teach professionals in all types of ...

CAYLIE visited with a lot of new friends yesterday.  Jack went to Harrisburg Elementary for two years, so it's always nice to go back there.  I got hugs from two of his teachers, which he loved hearing about last night.  CAYLIE visited the two autistic classrooms we had the year before last, but there were many new friends to get used to.  CAYLIE can be a bit shy, so she was a little nervous as were the ...

[caption id="attachment_11586" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="She's not so sure about her new ride."][/caption]   This morning, CAYLIE went back to school in Jack's new van.  She was really funny trying to figure out where to sit and how to get out.  We visited Wolf Meadow Elementary and had a meet and greet with our new kids and teachers.  CAYLIE was a bit rusty because she was lazy thi ...

I remember meeting Jeff and TAZIE for the first time last semester as I took Kyria's Assistance Dog class and remember how difficult it was for him.  I also remember how difficult it was for me.  Being 45 in a class of young people and having issues of my own to where I was applying for a service dog made me feel like a fish out of water.  I lived in Jacksonville, NC at the time and drove an hour each wa ...

On September 10, I went to my first town council meeting in Harrisburg.  I was a bit nervous, but needed to go to support a law that The Coalition for Justice is trying to pass in North Carolina.  This bill is called Kilah's Law for a 3 year old girl who was abused and shaken like our Jack.  Here is the link for her story and the proposed law: Kilah lives just a few minutes from us and I have spoken wit ...

In late December of 2009, Eliot, Jack, CAYLIE and I went to visit my aunt in West Virginia.  CAYLIE was just starting to live with us and we had never taken her to a hotel before.  For some of you who have read our blogs from that time, you may remember that when Eliot checked us in, the hotel gave him a hard time. The Ramada Inn in Cattlesburg, Kentucky asked what our service dog was for and insisted we ...