We are Jen & Pharaby, this is our story.
Part 1:
In the fall of 2018 I was diagnosed with PTSD and a few other mental health challenges. This came as no surprise to me because I had been through hell over the previous several years (we will get to that story another time) but it involved being held hostage and some other really scary things.
When I was in therapy one day I had mentioned that I really needed a dog in my life and my Dr agreed, he said “you are someone who NEEDS a dog!”. See, my sweet doggy girl Bell, a 14 year old Chinese Crested, had passed away about 4 months before this conversation and my senior boy dog, Osker, had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer and I knew he was getting to the end of his life, he was also 14 and he actually passed away about a week after this conversation with my Dr.
At that time I wasn’t sure what all a service dog could do for me, so I started doing some research and quickly realized that I could greatly benefit from a service dog. I had a long list of problems that could be mitigated with the help of a dog. Just knowing that helped me have a better outlook on life in the coming months. I didn’t know what I was up against but I was ready for it!
Even before this I had done a lot of research about what kind of dog I would get next, I knew I wanted something a little bigger than my other dog had been & I knew I was interested in teaching it a lot of fun things. I did some of those breed match surveys and I kept getting matched with a poodle. To be honest, I was a little put off by that because I had never considered a poodle. I wasn’t sure about all of that hair & they sure did seem to be prissy.
I started doing some research on Standard Poodles, what to look for in a breeder, how to pick a puppy for service work and other things that I thought would be helpful like health testing to look out for. Somehow I found a breeder (Lake Sai Standard Poodles) a few hours away from me who had a litter of 9 puppies who would be ready to go in about a week! all but 2 were spoken for, a boy and a girl were possibly available for me IF it was a good fit so I scheduled a time for a visit, just to see what they were like.
This was 9 days after my sweet senior boy, Osker, had passed away & honestly, that was 9 days too long!
The breeder I found worked with a service dog program and the parents of her current littler had previously produced several service dogs. This was really exciting for me to find! Standard Poodles are known to be part of what is called the “Fab4" that is the top 4 dog breeds for service work. So once again, I was really excited to figure that out. As someone who didn’t know much about service dogs, I had no idea that a poodle would be good for that.
Fast forward to the day I got to see the puppies! When I arrived I was greeted by their mom, Jojo, I also met their dad and they were amazing dogs! I had never seen a Standard Poodle in real life so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
When I walked in the house there was a large area of the living room gated off for the puppies. The breeder asked me to sit in the floor so she could let the puppies out. I was stormed by 9 precious pups, it was great! One puppy ran to me like we knew each other and had just been reunited after years of being apart for years & years! I picked that puppy up to say hi & she started to lick my face, while I was holding her I noticed that she was wearing a purple collar, my heart sank. Prior to my visit I had been sent a few videos of the available pups and the “purple collar girl” was one of my choices. It was like she was put there just for me & she knew we were going to be a family.
My puppy picked me & I felt like the luckiest girl in the whole wide world! I just know that it was meant for us to be together, she is perfect for me! A little backstory about me, I have a huge fear of driving very far and a big fear of driving on the interstate. I had to do both to go see the puppies. It was like I was drawn there like a magnet, like something was pulling me there. Now I am going to sound even more crazy BUT I feel like my other dogs sent my new puppy to me, or sent me to her.
I promise we will get to the service dog stuff soon, but for this to be a good story we had to start from the start from the beginning 😉
Be sure to follow me so you can read the next parts of my story. Because of my disability I can only write in short bursts, I am planning to write often.